On Pointe

 

I love ballet. Not, like DOING ballet, but much like figure skating, dance is a fascinating discipline that combines athleticism and artistry to tell soap opera level stories with such furious passion that has no true equal. Dancers devote their lives to a challenging, high art form bound to break their hearts (and bodies). It's tragic and beautiful.

Hence, anytime a genre (or in this case, adjacent) film crosses my eyes with a pirouette, I'm in. 

Quick Plot: Miss Thorna's small ballet troupe is heading to Budapest for an important gala performance, but their bus isn't quite up for the trip. It breaks down somewhere in the Hungarian woods, leaving the girls to hike their way to the nearest glimpse of civilization: a rundown hotel stacked with eastern European gangsters under the watch of former prima donna Devora.

Enough small bad decisions are made that things go very wrong very quickly. Miss Thorna witnesses something she shouldn't and pays for it with an immediate bullet to the head. With no phone service or record of their tracks, her dancers are seemingly lambs to the slaughter. 

Never discount someone who can do fouettés on the very tips of her toes.

As defacto leader Bones points out, these girls may be outmanned and on strange turf, but their enemies are drunk and out of shape. The dancers, on the other hand, are prima FUCKING ballerinas. No, they're not trained to disarm gangsters or even fire guns (well, never discount a country club girl), but they ARE physical Amazons with skills John Wick could only dream about.

Directed by Vicky Jewson from a sharp script by Kate Freund, Pretty Lethal is pretty damn fun. Maddie Ziegler confidently leads the action and bounces especially well off rich girl Princess (Lana Condor). The film seamlessly includes a deaf character (A Quiet Place's Millicent Simmonds) without ever feeling like a forced decision. At under 90 minutes, there's little time for backstories but honestly? It doesn't matter. The actresses all put enough into their characters and Freund's script gives us all we need in their interactions to know who they are. 

Best of all, there's nothing cruel about Pretty Lethal. Another filmmaker could easily have taken the material and made it leering or unpleasant. Beautiful young women battling for their lives against male gangsters can go very, very wrong. In Jewson's hands, we have full confidence that these women will be able to take care of themselves.

High Points

Yes, we get fight choreography that combines ballet and basic bar brawls, and yes, it's fabulous. 

Low Points

I know that Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite is a) the most recognizable ballet for Americans and b) public domain and therefore convenient to drop into your soundtrack, but the actual ballet-ness of Pretty Lethal feels a bit stifled by being restricted to this as its only real source of music

Lessons Learned

You can tell a well-traveled ballerina by whether she knows the difference between ebola and e-coli

Toenail torture does not work on ballerinas

Hungarian gangsters shoot as well as Empire stormtroopers

Nobody commits to an accent quite like Uma Thurman

Rent/Bury/Buy

Pretty Lethal was kind of made for me, so it's hard to know if its appeal is quite as universal. But hey, if you like ballet mixed with hand to hand combat and sprinkled on top with Uma Thurman in full camp, you can't really go wrong. Find if on Amazon. 

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.

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. 

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. 

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.

Home Sweet Smart Home

 

I have a smart oven. It's nice. I can turn the preheat function on while driving home to save some cooking time. I can turn the oven off without getting up from my chair to save my body from putting in a tiny bit of physical effort. I can turn the light on when I'm not home just to confuse my husband, which is fun.

Sure, life has been made about .00000000000275% easier by this addition to my life. 

I realize that when 'smart homes' are discussed, the stakes are a bit higher. Alexa calling emergency services or adjusting your thermostat for better efficiency is a bit different, and certainly has some genuinely helpful tricks for its inhabitants. But also, every aspect of our days do not require the intervention of a computer code.The obsession with turning more and more simple actions more complex so long as we don't have to do them is, to me, silly.

Onto the smart house horror movie. 

Quick Plot: Our prologue introduces us to a relaxing couple whose evening hits a roadblock when Margaux, their smart home hostess, goes homicidal.  

Somewhere a road trip away, graduating college senior Drew has corralled his scholarship buddies for one last weekend together in the aforementioned smart house. Among the crew are lovebirds Kayla and Devon, stoner Clay (Final Destination: Bloodlines' Richard Harmon), and programming whiz Hannah. 

The gang is happy to reminisce about their freshman year over Pringles bongs and beers, but their rhythm gets interrupted by the last minute crashing of Drew's influencer girlfriend Lexi. This is especially frustrating to Hannah, who's clearly been nursing a crush on Drew since orientation. She also has the added stress of being a computer nerd with a strong (and wise) distrust of AI and data collection. Margaux isn't exactly her dream home. 

At first, the house is splendid. Clay gets treated to the perfect buffet to satisfy his munchies. Kayla and Devon have a honeymoon suite perfectly stocked with their favorite sex accessories. Lexi thrives under the perfect lighting for selfies. What could possibly go wrong?

Obviously, everything. 

Directed by Steven C. Miller from a script credited to Chris Beyrooty, Nick Waters, and Chris Sivertson, Margaux is way better than you probably expected when I said, "today's movie is about a killer smart house." The concept is perfectly fine, even if Margaux's motives are a little fuzzier than they should be (considering Margaux likes to talk a LOT). What makes Margaux such a joy comes down to its characters.

Movies about pretty young people in peril are a standard in the horror genre. Often what separates the good ones from the bad isn't the creativity of kills, but the plain likability of a cast. In the case of Margaux, these young actors are quite good. They're all funny (not surprising if you've seen Richard Harmon's wonderful turn in that Final Destination MRI room) but more importantly, their actual relationships are real.

Take Kayla and Devon, the hot and horny couple obviously marked for an early end. They serve a time-honored role that's so familiar in teen slashers that we know not to be invested. AND YET! Phoebe Miu and Jordan Buhat are so charming that it's impossible not to be gutted when Margaux inevitably has her way. They establish such a believable chemistry that it makes their fully expected death scene have a deep impact.

It would have been so easy for these characters to be silly one-note stereotypes. Some movies seem to even encourage actors to push audiences to root for their deaths. But that's really not the case here. Even interloper Lexi (gamely played by Vanessa Morgan) doesn't deserve Margaux's cruelty. I really wanted the best for these kids!

There are also plenty of good ideas and creativity at heart in Margaux. I liked some of the third act's twists, although the biggest one feels a bit impossible to track in a frustrating way (that will likely make sense if you've seen it). With a bigger budget and maybe a tad more time, I think this could have truly been great. Those details aside, Margaux was satisfying for me from beginning to end. That's not something I expected to say about the killer smart house movie nobody talked about.

High Points

Seriously, this young cast is simply filled with fresh talent that I'm excited to see again. Go Canada!

Low Points

You can cover up a low budget in a lot of clever ways, but Margaux's cartoon CGI robot arms feel bargain bin even by, let's say, SyFy Channel standards

Lessons Learned

The smarter you are, the dumber you will act in the face of emergency

Never mess with a brand ambassador

Nobody is impressed with smart houses

Rent/Bury/Buy

I had a blast with Margaux. It has a great young cast, sharp writing, and some genuinely creative sequences that felt fresh. It's a big recommend (currently streaming on Amazon) and the kind of movie that makes me really excited to see more from its team.