Revenge Is a Dish Best Served Permed

Have we come up with a name for the subgenre of shockingly relevant genre cinema that probably reads much deeper than it might have ever been intended to? I'm thinking first of Gone, the Amanda Seyfried thriller that thudded in theaters when it debuted in 2012, but took on wildly more significant meaning when I happened to watch it in the midst of Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings. Similarly, 1988's Necromancer seems at first glance like a simple rape revenge slasher, but proves to be an oddly prescient, timely tale.

Quick Plot: Julie is a scholarship student majoring in theater and having some romance problems: trying to break things off with her inappropriate acting professor while assuring her perfect boyfriend that he's the one. While staying on campus after hours, she spots a trio of her classmates trying to steal some test answers. Their response? Rape.

Poor Julie is too afraid to go to the police, since Paul, the ringleader, has evidence of her affair that might jeopardize her scholarship and destroy her relationship. Her best friend spots a classified ad for a necromancer, so naturally, they take the best option.

Turns out, the going rate for vengeance in 1988 was just $20 and it was performed fairly efficiently in a suburban garage by a young woman named, as far as I can tell, the mysteriously supernatural "Lisa". When Julie realizes just what she's paid for--Lisa taking on her form to seduce each of her attackers before violently tearing them apart--she learns the hard way that much like Buffy the Vampire's Anya, Lisa doesn't issue refunds.

Between her remorseless rapists, skeevy professor, and unsympathetic (whether the movie understands it or not) boyfriend, the men of Necromancer have a lot of devouring-by-starfished-handed-demon coming. Writer William T. Naud was onto something here, especially with Julie's reluctance to go to the authorities knowing her sexual history will render her an imperfect victim. 

As played by Silent Night, Deadly Night 2's Elizabeth Kaitan, Julie is the kind of sympathetic lead who, had I seen this movie in my youth, I might have dismissed as weak. We want our heroines to fight back, to show no mercy. We sometimes forget that they're 19-year-old girls unable to process the trauma they go through. 

It's easier, in a post-#metoo world, to see some things with more clarity. Whether Naud and director Dusty Nelson had grander intentions or just wanted to throw some bloody demon vengeance our way, the end result has weight. As Julie's horrible power-abusing professor, a permed Russ Tamblyn helps to really drive the point home. I kind of wish Necromancer dove a little deeper into the grayer men, as Necromancer ultimately pulls a few of its punches, giving in to Julie's demon fears and letting the men's crimes somewhat off the hook. 

High Points

As a former theater kid, nothing will ever entertain me more easily than seeing bad Romeo and Juliets

Low Points

The confusion of whether three men are actually dead might work for Necromancer's mystery, but it doesn't make sense in a world where, you know, these are college students whose deaths would be noticed

Lessons Learned

If people didn't live out their sexual fantasies, there wouldn't be any history. Think about it.

An arcade is no place to discuss last night's sexual assault

You don't need a garage door to enact lethal supernatural vengeance on rapists. A curtain will do just fine

Dudes, trust me: if you rape or assist in the rape of a woman and she shows up in your shower, she does not, in any way, have seduction on her mind

Rent/Bury/Buy

I expected a hefty dose of '80s cheese with Necromancer, but I was genuinely surprised at how much more it had to say. Time has been kind to this goofy little supernatural vengeance thriller, and while I wish it had committed a little harder to its concept, I still had a good time. Worth your eyeballs on Amazon Prime.

Gone Girls

Bumping a random flop of a 2012 teen-aimed thriller seemed like a great light way to kill 90 minutes.

Then the world happened.

Quick Plot: Diner waitress Jill lives with her hard-studying college student sister Molly. While Molly spends most of her time immersed in economics books and her boyfriend (pre-Bucky Sebastian Stan), Jill roams a nearby forest seeking evidence of her own alleged abduction a year earlier. 

One day, Jill returns home to find Molly vanished--er, GONE. JIll immediately jumps into action mode, digging for clues at the scene of the crime and calling the detectives who handled her own past cast.

Turns out, nobody believes Jill, neither then nor now. Since no evidence had been found to corroborate Jill's previous experience, the Portland PD has written off the young woman as a pathological liar. The fact that Jill spent some time in a mental asylum certainly didn't help.

Without the law on her side, Jill decides to hunt down Molly's abductor herself. Thankfully, most strangers are pretty willing to help an attractive young woman, especially since Jill has such an uncanny knack for making up elaborate lies on the fly. 

Directed by Heitor Dhalia, Gone premiered in the much simpler time of 2012. Back then, it opened to little fanfare, an 8% Rotten Tomatoes score, and the general consensus that it was an overcomplicated but underwritten PG13 dude. I'm not here to say that Gone is anything worthy of the Criterion Collection, but when you make the randomly mistimed decision to watch the day after Brett Kavanaugh is confirmed to the highest court in the nation, it's weirdly relevant.

Nobody believes Jill, but the male cops REALLY don't believe her. The film isn't quite good enough to explore that in a way that says much, but there is an extremely dark undercurrent to the idea in 2018. Along with that is the somewhat ahead-of-its-time recurring motif of men encouraging Jill to lighten up and smile. Any woman can tell you why that's a horror in itself.

Is Gone a good movie? Not especially, but it has that kind of earnest intensity that I tend to enjoy. I've always found Amanda Seyfried to be incredibly watchable, and her crazy saucer eyes are used to grand effect here. It's also fun to see a random assortment of attractive character actors inhabit the red herring of the moment, from Jennifer Carpenter as a single mom diner waitress to Wes Bentley as the world's shiftiest rookie cop.

Perhaps more or less importantly, Gone is a different movie when watched in October of 2018. We can thank this vomit of a government for a lot of horrible things, but seeing a mediocre thriller turn into a weirdly relevant social message about believing women? That's a new one.

High Points

While I don't quite know how to feel about the final stinger of Gone, the main ending involving Jill's decision is incredibly satisfying in concept (even if the film is a little too distracted to truly earn it)

Low Points

Red herrings are expected and required for this kind of movie, but there's something annoyingly disappointing about just how carelessly Gone handles its handful

Lessons Learned

The way to a teenage girl's trust is the promise of a Justin Bieber concert ticket

Chasing split tail is for firefighters, not detectives

No woman taking a self defense class wants to be called "sweetie" by her male partner

Hell hath no fury like whatever it is living on the head of Daniel Sunjata's partner

Rent/Bury/Buy

I have no idea who should watch Gone. Like the occasional better-than-it-should-be Lifetime flick, it's probably more enjoyable to my eyes than most. It's also (and perhaps by the time November elections come up, less so) oddly infuriating until it becomes (mild spoiler alert) even more oddly uplifting in its depiction of how women are looked at by authority figures. The world is a strange place.