This Traffic Is Killer

 

They don't make 'em like they used to.

The "'em" in this case is obviously made-for-TV movies. We have LOTS, but there's something about the way 1970s America gave us these overly ambitious, incredibly dramatic and perfectly timed for commercial breaks features that just has an incredible charm. 

Quick Plot: It's a busy July 4th on the titular California Interstate 5. On this particular holiday in 1976, a 39-car pileup will take the lives of 14 motorists. 

These are their stories.

Well, about a dozen of those involved IN said pile-up. After an incredibly impressive opening stunt on par with the opening of Final Destination 2, Smash-Up On Interstate 5 turns the clock back 48 hours to tell us just how we got here, zooming in a few of the drivers who will meet some dramatic fate. It's a very '70s disaster movie collection that includes:

- June (Harriet Nelson) and Al (Buddy Ebsen), an adorable elderly couple trying to make the most out of June's impending cancer

- a gang of bikers who try to assault -

- Erica (Vera Miles), a later-in-life divorcee trying to find her way and stumbling upon a ridiculously romantic doctor-turned-trucker 

- Penny and Pete, a runaway couple who hitch a ride with Lee before turning a gun on him but killing -

- a baby-faced Tommy Lee Jones as Officer Hutton, who widows his young wife just as she gives birth the to child he'll never meet

- his brother-in-law and sergeant Sam (Robert Conrad), who wants to marry nurse Laureen (Donna Mills), who refuses to do so because Sam could die on the road and leave her a widow like her sister

Got all that? 

Based on the novel Expressway, Smash-Up On Interstate 5 feels unusual today, but probably fit quite well in the epic disaster era of its time. It's a star-studded ensemble piece that culminates in a giant action sequence and a surprising body count. To call director John Llewellyn Moxey a television veteran is like saying Cal Ripken Jr. had good attendance. This is a man whose career spanned four decades, including The Night Stalker and EIGHTEEN episodes of Murder, She Wrote. Not all heroes make it to the big screen.

But they can still wear capes

In truth, I'm not really sure what Smash-Up is trying to do as a movie. There's a certain kind of human discovery in getting to know a variety of strangers whose lives will be fundamentally changed (and maybe even ended) in just a matter of hours by a sheer mechanical accident. The day-to-day, how-we-got-here works better for some stories than others. I would have happily watched a full movie centered on June and Al navigating their relationship in the face of disease, while the troubled-runaway-meets-even-more-troubled-murderer did little for me (and this is technically a horror blog). 

So why even write about it here, you might ask? Well, the odds are somewhat higher that I'll meet my fate at the hands of a bad driver than masked machete-wielding supernaturally gifted maniac, so on that front, Smash-Up IS scary. And you know what? So is being a middle-aged divorcee fighting off the advances of Herb Edelman.

High Points

Seriously, Ebsen and Nelson are so touching as a couple with decades of love and the knowledge that things are about to end. It makes you understand why this kind of storytelling was so popular. When it works, it really, really works

Low Points

Maybe it's just the current state of the country, but the cop stuff (which takes up a significant amount of screentime) is far less interesting than the rest. Even the sheer manipulation of a woman giving birth while her dutiful policeman husband is gunned down summoned more of an eyeroll than frown

Lessons Learned

They don't teach screaming in lamaz

Nothing brings a couple back together like a smash-up!

Never accept a ride from Bad Ronald, even if you're fully armed

The Winning Line

[upon hearing hubby Al tapping out some Chopin on the piano] "You played that the first time we made love!"

I knew Buddy Ebsen was talented, but the ability to play a nocturne while having sex? That's coordination!

Rent/Bury/Buy

Smash-Up On Interstate 5 is far from a classic, but I found it quite entertaining. It's currently streaming on Amazon Prime.

Welcome to Prime Time

  

If you know me even slightly, you knew this was coming. 

3% on Rotten Tomatoes? "Overwhelming dislike" cited on MetaCrtici?

Obviously, it would take an alien invasion to keep me away.

Quick Plot: Will Radford tirelessly works for the Department of Homeland Security, spending his days randomly Google Earthing and zooming in on civilizations to listen to their private conversations. The same way a lot of us distract ourselves with social media during the work day, Will kills his time by spying on his children: soon-to-be mom Faith and son Dave, who has some moral qualms with the way his father violates all personal liberties. 

Will's incredibly immoral professional behavior pays off when hungry aliens land with a bang. What are they hungry for, you might ask? The same thing Will consumes every day: data.

That's right, these creatures from another world have come to ours to invade our data centers.

[demands crossover with Eddington now] 

We all knew that a reckoning of how we killed time during the height of COVID-19 was coming. Me? I ate too much Domino's cheesy bread and watched toxic levels of America's Next Top Model. Gal Gadot? The Imagine video should haunt her past the time those Wonder Woman residuals run dry.

Rich Lee made War of the Worlds.

Considering the infamous radio play mania of War of the Worlds's history, making a Zoom-style adaptation in the internet age makes perfect sense. On paper, this is a good idea.

But good ideas require good execution. 

Or moderately acceptable levels of execution. 

Or lazy intern-levels.

I don't know how much lower I can go: this is a bad, bad movie. I'm almost willing to give the performances a pass because I have to wonder if they thought they were just killing a Friday night with a friend's read-through, the same way a lot of us connected with our pals via Jackbox games. There's no way Clark Gregg (as the corrupt FBI director) and Eva Longoria (as "Sandra NASA", because that's how our government operative saves his contacts) gave these performances thinking they were being recorded, right???

I just hope they were paid generously in Amazon gift cards.

So, that's the other reason War of the Worlds is picking up so much justified internet hatred. This is an Amazon commercial. A terrible, fairly inept 90 minute (plus some commercials because even an Amazon commercial needs ad revenue) Amazon commercial. Guess who saves the world? An Amazon driver, by way of his Amazon drone. 

No, I'm not kidding. 

High Points

This isn't coming for Spielberg, but for what War of the Worlds is, the effects are mostly fine

Low Points

This movie ends on a thumbs up tweet from Joe Rogan. AND it's a commercial that...has commercials. We're living in a dark, dark timeline

Lessons Learned (and illustrated through Ice Cube's best acting moments)

$1000 Amazon gift card beats free internet for one year (providing you have access to internet to use said Amazon gift card)

Top secret military installations don't allow thumb drives, though they do grant personal access to Facebook

Prime Air is the future of delivery

Rent/Bury/Buy

It's hard to be responsible for anyone giving an Amazon original commercial their eyeballs and data. Also, this is a terrible movie. AND YET. Terrible movie completists will not NOT be entertained by this mess. It's a moral quandary.

May I Have This (Grave)Dance?

Ever watch a film that was made when you were an adult--legal to vote, legal to drink, college degree long in hand--and realize that was almost 20 years ago? That 2006, which I swear was just last week, was actually not one, but nearly TWO decades in the past? 

Children have since been born, gone through puberty, released pop albums, learned technology far better than us elderly ever will. You can watch The Gravedancers and flinch at the weird blue gray pallor that coats your frames and cackle at the CGI not because it's a fairly low budget horror movie, but because it's actually from a DIFFERENT AGE.

This is important. Maybe it's my way of not making this all about how old I feel, but remembering that this was a completely ancient ERA of genre film really helps frame your watch. 

Quick Plot: Harris is a successful lawyer trying to start a family with loving wife Allison. Life is interrupted by the death of a college pal, which reunites Harris with his two best pals from back in the day: Sid, whose primary post-university high point seems to be maintaining status as a functioning alcoholic, and Kira, who has clearly never stopped loving the very moved-on Harris. 

The trio go out for drinks and decide to continue their mourning at the gravesite of the deceased. Any worries that this is in bad taste are quickly pushed away when Sid finds a black envelope conveniently resting on a nearby stone. In it contains a poem all about living in the moment and what a joy it is to dance upon graves. Surely it's a sign that they should, you know, gravedance!

Harris returns to a rightfully displeased Allison and understandably does NOT tell her about his evening festivities (especially since they enjoyed a kiss or two with Kira). Very soon, that becomes the least of their problems as the couple begins to experience ghostly activity. Kira and Sid have similar experiences, leading them to a pair of pre-Ghosthunters being a thing ghosthunters Vincent and Frances to help stop the haunting before it becomes deadly. 

Frances is thrilled with the chance to gather real evidence of paranormal activity (note: we're still several years away from Paranormal Activity). A little digging turns up the obvious: dancing on graves will unleash the ghosts of those inhibiting said dance floor. Naturally, these particular ghosts were homicidal maniacs: pyromaniac child, rapist judge, and axe-wielding piano teacher. 

Directed by Mike Mendez, The Gravedancers is a film that ages oddly...even as you watch it. For the first act, I found myself cackling at the typical aughtsness of fairly awful, very dumb young(ish) people making terrible choices with every breath. The ghosts seemed silly, the dialogue even siller. But at some point, something started clicking into place. Mendez has since gone on to make some successful outright horror comedies, and while The Gravedancers isn't a laughfest, the film has a sly sense of humor. The cast is far sharper than they initially seem, and even the Beetlejuice by way of Bava-y monster makeup becomes, at times, kind of creepy. 

The Gravedancers grew on me. It's a standard ghost story with some specific twists, executed with deceptive intelligence by Mendez and his screenwriters Brad Keene and Chris Skinner. I don't know that I'll ever watch it again or work hard to recommend it, but I ultimately enjoyed myself. This is VERY far from great, but it's never boring, and more importantly, never takes itself too seriously. 

High Points

Once our cursed dummies gather in one place, The Gravedancers really hits its stride in terms of timing and momentum. The finale is both funny and scary and yes, looks pretty terrible at times, but really helps to up the energy

Low Points

I know, I know: CGI did not look very good on a low budget in 2006. But I'd forgotten just HOW not good it was. Pair that with the weird gray-blue tint this streaming version has and it makes for a fairly ugly watch

Lessons Learned

I have yet to heed this, but The Gravedancers is just one more reminder that in any supernatural disaster, the ability to drive stick may save your life

Yes, it's irresponsible to be in your 30s and drunkenly party in a graveyard, thus inviting murderous spirits onto your trail, but the REAL culprit in this haunting is the wife who decided to not spend time with your awkward college love triangle and went home, thus opening the door for you to drunkenly party in a graveyard in the first place

Setting your film in a graveyard is a great trick for directors looking to take home a prop that includes their name

Does the Cat Die?

No! because apparently, the feline actor was a jerk who scratched Clare Kramer (AN ACTUAL [BUFFYVERSE] GOD) and was fired from production. So don't worry!

Rent/Bury/Buy

If you can forgive the fact that this movie looks like it was dropped in a puddle and brushed off, there's a fair amount of fun to be had with The Gravedancers. It's dumb, but in a smart way. It's currently streaming on Amazon Prime in its muddy glory. 

Changing the Menu

Considering how ubiquitous fine dining culture has become, it makes perfect sense that we'd get more genre movies set in that world. As someone who will don a s'more suit in full defense of The Menu (but will also wince at the shouting in The Bear) I'm all for this development in horror. Bring on the colorful closeups of rainbow produce I say!

Quick Plot: Finally ready to make it on her own, Chef (Ariana DeBose) leaves her sous position job at an extremely renown New York restaurant to plan the menu for a different type of venue. Located in a small rural upstate town, the new spot is intended as the kind of "experience" that Bon Appetite will put on its cover. 

Chef is working the details out with business partner Andreas, but she's well-aware that she wasn't the first choice for the position. Magnus, a better known chef, left under fuzzy terms. We'll obviously find those out later.

At first Chef is excited by the new locale. It has its own blooming garden and a few nearby local shops that offer the perfect ingredient selection for her first big meal: a tryout with their biggest investor and an uppity food journalist. The morning of, Chef walks into her kitchen and discovers nothing but mold and bugs. Even the garden has shriveled beyond salvage. 

She's able to pivot with a juiced up boxed meal, but the damage is done. Andreas gives her two weeks to come up with a banger menu, while Chef takes a chance to connect more deeply with her new surroundings. The property is filled with touches from the original owner, a mysterious woman deemed a human-sacrificing witch by the locals. That may be, but this human-sacrificing witch also left some pristine recipe books and an exotic garden loaded with the kind of flavor bombing produce that catches food critics' hungry eyes. 

Things are improving as Chef and sous chef Lucia develop their new plan, but Chef gets cold feet when she discovers what actually happened to her predecessor. Was it the workings of the witchy former owner haunting the grounds? 

House of Spoils is an unusual genre film, but to explain why would, pun intended, spoil much of it. Written and directed by the team of Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy, it's a bit of a bait and switch in terms of what kind of story it's telling. 

Oh fine, I'll just do the thing:

No, the other one

Despite the maddening, moldy foreshadowing, House of Spoils is ultimately not trying to scare you. The twist, which comes a bit abruptly, reveals that the mysterious figure with some killer recipes was wrongfully hunted as a witch when she was actually a healer. Her deep connection to the earth and its gifts is ultimately what Chef needs to break through her own hard shell and create something transcendent.

It's a bit jarring when you realize that the giant bonfire Chef is raising in the middle of some very flammable woods is NOT going to become a mass grave for foodies, and that the ghost of a recipe developer isn't molding food out of spite. Considering all of the toxicity of the restaurant world, there's something quite admirable about what Cole and Krudy are trying to do. It's almost as if they're pulling out the weeds to find a way to cultivate something pure.

High Points

Having only seen Ariana DeBose's incredible West Side Story performance and incredible in a very different way BAFTA rap, I knew her as a theater kid with outstanding dance skills. As Chef, she goes for a very different type of performance. It's easy to not actually like the character (who's kind of an a$$hole) but impossible to not believe this person. It makes the ending that much more interesting, as it really does feel like Chef has gone from something of an empty shell to a far more organic substance

Low Points

There's something very interesting going on between Chef and Lucia and how differently they carry themselves as women in this industry, but the film never has the chance to really dig into that. It's deeply frustrating to feel so unresolved

Lessons Learned

All chefs are either addicts or head cases

People from Newark don't garden

Risotto has a better track record in horror than Top Chef

Rent/Bury/Buy

House of Spoils isn't going to scratch the kind of itch served well by The Menu or The Feast, but if you're looking more for a kind of magical realism meal, it's certainly a unique and well-executed tale. Find it on Amazon Prime.