Let's Get Ready To Evil

We couldn't have a Shortening without at least one evil child flick, right?

Quick Plot: Fearing the youth of America is falling too far behind their more ambitious peers, a private tech country sets up a learning academy for the most gifted pre-teens in the near future. The school itself is buried deep in the bottom floors of a sprawling facility and run primarily via computerized educational tools, with no need for fallible humans in the teacher roles. Instead, three twentysomethings (eager Jenny, groovy Tiggs, and bad boy/self-proclaimed genius Darby) take on the new role as caretakers, merely supervising the kids to ensure they stay in bed and move from one class to the next.

This fancy new school is so elite that its occupants can only see with the help of souped up glasses that connect them to the technological workings of their surroundings. Also on board is ARIAL (it stands for some kind of Siri-esque function), a chipper virtual assistant designed to help the intellectually outmatched aides in their daily activities. 

You don't have to be as smart as the subjects to guess that locking super genius children in a sealed underground ward just might lead to some murderous chaos. As our three young adults try to evade their violent charges, we the audience watch it all unfold via their enhanced goggle vision.

Directed by Martin Owen (with a script by Owen, Jonathan Willis, and Elizabeth Morris, who also plays Jenny), Let's Be Evil follows the welcome format of IFC Midnight produced films with a brief 80ish minute run time. Since this is such a small, focused tale, it makes sense.

It also helps because one can only take eyeglass camera vision so long before it becomes a tad annoying.

As anyone who's ever stopped by this site knows, I'm an easy mark for a killer kid film. Maybe that's why Let's Be Evil worked for me. The visual style keeps things fresh enough, and the fact that we're literally in the dark on what's going on with the children works well. The leads don't get enough time to be interesting or overly compelling, but in their brief screentime, the story keeps everything engaging enough.

High Points

You have to give credit to a film that tells an age old tale with a new style

Low Points
I like to think I'm smart enough to get most of the plotting in modern horror, but it's been several days of thinking and I still can't figure out the exact significance of the opening and closing frame

Lessons Learned
Perhaps any school that's willing to hire caretakers with criminal records isn't going to be the safest work environment

Strong sensible people don’t put sugar in their coffee

In the near future, young men will be fashioning themselves akin to Max's jerky stepbrother in Stranger Things

Rent/Bury/Buy

This is the sort of case where I know I enjoyed a film more than the average viewer. Let's Be Evil has plenty of problems from a production and storytelling point of view, but it comes with a fresh approach and doesn't waste time turning into a hunt. It's not for everyone, but if evil children in a high-tech (but low budget) sounds intriguing, give it a go via Instant Watch.

Get Out (please)

Some movies are made to scare you. Some are made to make you look at the world differently. Some want to make you laugh.

And some seem put together solely to piss you off.

Quick Plot: A pre-credits teaser introduces us to an attractive young woman home alone at night. Before we get to know much about her, a mysterious figure throws a plastic bag over her face and kills her in a quicker way than I though possible based on what I know about air supply.

Moving on. 

Elizabeth, a cellist for the Portland Philharmonic, is mulling the decision to accept an elite position with a London orchestra. Holding her back her university tenured boyfriend Justin, who respects Elizabeth's talent and ambition but can't make the overseas switch for his own occupational reasons. 

As Elizabeth sits back for a leisurely weekend of laundry, wine, cat sitting, decision-making, and a LOT of showering, a hooded figure slips into her apartment to commit such atrocities as peeing in her kitchen sink, taking a bite out of an apple in a fruit bowl and putting it back, and worst of all, dipping his dirty finger into her cottage cheese.

Over the next day or so, Elizabeth showers and runs some errands, unaware that a potential killer is following her every move. She showers. She does some laundry and meets an odd but seemingly nice enough neighbor named John. She feeds her friend's cat and showers. She stops at her rehearsal studio to practice some Dvorak under the strict eye (and terrible line delivering) of her conductor Vincent, played (badly) by Moby for reasons unexplained. Then she showers. Because the movie needs a few more suspects, Elizabeth also continues to bump into a mysterious man who's either homeless or, you know, another mysterious neighbor.  Justin stops by for some makeup/breakup sex. Elizabeth showers. She pours more wine, Skypes with her mother, practices her cello...

Guys, seriously: the cello is the most interesting part.

I have no way of discussing why I hated this movie so much without spoiling it, but before I do that, allow me to provide the stupidest warning I have ever had to give: if for some masochistic urge you decide to watch this movie (maybe because you really like showers), make sure you stick around past the first minute or so of the credits. This is only if you want to actually see the ending of Intruder, which for some reason, is "hidden" after the first round of titles. So if, like me, the movie ends you say, "Are  you kidding me?", take some comfort in knowing another 3 minutes are coming soon. 

Note that when those 3 minutes end, your reaction, if you are me, will be something more akin to, "Oh, are you F*CKING kidding me?"

So. After 80 minutes of watching a hooded figure skulk around the likable but possibly deaf Elizabeth, the movie decides to just SHOW his face. And yes, it's John, the creepy neighbor who says more words than the other creepy neighbor who proves to be one of a few red herrings in a mystery that the film doesn't have the skill to actively craft. 

So. 80 minutes of buildup and teasing, a lot of showers and closeups of a cat's bland facial expressions, a one second reveal, punctuated by Elizabeth going to sleep, sneezing, and awakening the reveal that JOHN HAS BEEN IN THE HOUSE THIS WHOLE TIME BUT AT LEAST HE SAYS BLESS YOU SO BRIDGET FONDA IN SINGLES WOULD LIKE HIM.

Credits.

I'm angry now, but about to be angrier at writer/director Travis Zairwny (sometimes credited as "Travis Z." which does not help matters in the least). After we learn the names of a few key players behind Intruder, we get our coda (which is actually an ending, and not a coda, but whatever). Elizabeth wakes up trapped in John's basement. She bangs at a window for help.

And John wraps a plastic bag around her pretty face and kills her.

A few more credits roll.

Then he goes to his favorite coffee shop and starts on his new female fixation.

Eff. This. Movie.

Eff it for burying its ending after the credits as if its viewers were that invested that they wouldn't immediately change the channel after it ended. Eff it for tossing in suspect after suspect without giving us any reason to evaluate their motives. Eff it for being so cruel in how it disposes of a character we've just spent 80 minutes watching with such mean abandon. Eff it for making said character the least observant person to ever be presumably gifted with the five senses (I mean, she cooked breakfast and somehow didn't smell the urine in her kitchen sink?). Eff it for the amount of times it almost has her realize THERE'S A PERSON IN HER APARTMENT ALL WEEKEND only to have a last minute distraction save said PERSON IN HER APARTMENT from being discovered. Eff it for how it offers absolutely no finesse in revealing WHO THE PERSON IN HER APARTMENT IS other than just randomly showing his face. Eff it for its showers. Eff it for wasting so much time showing how the cat is the only one in the movie with any awareness that there's someone inside, except that the cat doesn't act like any cat ever in that he never actually acts as if there IS someone inside. Eff it for pretending to be this deep character study in such a terribly paced slice of life way while offering no sense that anything matters. And of course, eff the many, many showers.

It is mean, it is pointless, it is boring, and it is easily one of the most unsatisfying films I have ever watched. 

High Points

The real shame of Intruder is that it contains the kernel of a great idea. We've seen the home invasion tale told time and time again, but the way the film begins to (very loosely) craft its suspects suggests a much more interesting look at how, for a very attractive young woman, every interaction with a man might pose some kind of danger. We meet Moby's Vincent as he berates Elizabeth while giving her an unwanted massage (thus opening up a whole slew of uncomfortable questions about a woman trying to fend off sexual harassment without confronting it). John is introduced as the kind of nice neighbor you meet and should be friends with, but then goes on to ask just enough questions to make you immediately mention your boyfriend to shut down any chance of the conversation going in the wrong direction. Then there's the creepy guy who just seems to live outside this nice neighborhood. Maybe he's just an eccentric who likes the rain, but as any woman who has had to decide whether to respond when a stranger on the street says hello will tell you, there's a complicated threat there. 

If only the movie were smarter to actually explore this

Low Points!!!!

Lessons Learned

Extremely skilled musicians typically have terrible hearing 

Anyone who claims to make a living by blogging is definitely a lying homicidal maniac

When done effectively, fatal stab wounds yield no blood

Rent/Bury/Buy

You want an effective thriller about a hard-working young woman being stalked by an obsessive psychopath? Watch Sleep Tight. Want a poorly constructed, misanthropic slug of 90 minutes that will waste your time? This one's on Instant Watch. 

Party Games

With films like Contracted and Plus One, IFC's Midnight division has been scooping up a nice little array of quality horror. Let's see if their track record holds up:

Quick Plot: Iris is not in a happy place. After her parents' death, the poor young woman has had to drop out of  college in order to care for her terminally ill younger brother. With no real source of income, she's struggling to pay for his medical expenses and deal with the horrors of organ donation waiting lists.

Hope is renewed by her doctor (The Wire's D'Angelo Barksdale, who may have been cannibalized on The Walking Dead but will always be D'Angelo Barksdale) who recommends Iris for a sort of philanthropic contest held by the mysterious Shep Lambrick (the delectable Jeffrey Combs, who will always be The Delectable Jeffrey Combs because he is awesomely delectable). The terms are vague, but it seems like a can't-lose for the nothing-left-to-lose that is Iris.

Naturally, the party is a delightful evening of slapstick, wordplay, and miscounted bullets leading to freeze frame.

Or not.

Iris arrives at a swanky mansion to meet a batch of dinner guests/recognizable character actors in the same boat. Among the potential players are Nebraska's delightful June  Squibb as a partially paralyzed senior, former adult actress Sasha Grey as a moody brat, Agent Peggy Carter's pal Enver Gjokaj, Future Creative Director Peggy Olsen's ex Abe, and Mr. McCallister himself, John Heard.

This is a pretty groovy party, and not JUST because it references my two favorite fictional Peggys.

Mr. Lambrick also throws a few extras to the table: his spoiled son Julian (Gotham's only positive note, Robin Lord Taylor) and a butler with even more skills than Tim Curry named Bevans.

Scattegories and Charades are sadly not on the itinerary.

Instead, Mr. Lambrick lures his guests into a rather terrifying game of Would You Rather, the more action-based alternative to Truth or Dare. It starts innocently enough. Would vegetarian Iris rather eat a steak  or give up $10,000? Would recovered alcoholic Mr. McCallister drink a glass of wine for $10,000 or scotch for $50,000?

This is only the practice round.

As you might guess (especially if you've seen the similarly themed and toned 13 Sins), the game escalates with each round, turning contestants against each other and forcing them to confront how far they'll go for a big bag of money. It's a compelling situation because most of us who weren't born Julian Lambrick probably know what it's like to dream of solving all your problems with cash. Like Iris, most of us would never want to willingly play along with inflicting pain (and possible death) on someone else, but when faced with the choices forced upon our characters, it's easy to understand why they act as they do.

Though not quite as clever as 13 Sins, Would You Rather? is another strong entry into, well, whatever this oddly popular subgenre of horror might be called. Director David Guy Levy has assembled a far stronger-than-you'd expect cast of actors who manage to create genuine characters with the absolute minimum exposition. We learn very little about most of the participants, and while I certainly wouldn't have objected to knowing more, the film doesn't suffer for it. The performances all come with the necessary weight to make their lives (and inevitable deaths) matter regardless of whether we know their individual backstories.

I enjoyed Would You Rather? quite a bit, though my ultimate rating suffers a little because 13 Sins came with a little more heft. Nevertheless, Would You Rather? is a smart enough flick, and yet another example of how there remains plenty of quality 21st century horror output to be found outside a movie theater.

High Points

At first, I though I'd be annoyed with the seemingly very typical 'outsider deux ex machina' fix that was teased, but Would You Rather? manages to deal with it in a far more interesting way than I was expecting

Low Points

Perhaps it's just that Robin Lord Taylor was the only good thing on Gotham, but his character's rather abrupt exit (it's not a spoiler, don't worry) was rather frustrating when he posed so much weird and icky potential

Lessons Learned

When attending a mysterious dinner party, consider wearing noiseless flats. You just never know

College is an important place, if only for teaching one the proper pronunciation of the word 'monsieur'

Another dinner party guest tip: avoid sitting next to Sasha Grey. Choose the Agent Carter guy instead

Rent/Bury/Buy

Would You Rather? isn't a game changer, but it's a solid little genre flick built on a strong cast that easily sells what could have been a rote premise. Just over 90 minutes, it's well worth a quick little stream when you're in the mood for good modern horror. 

Murder, She Snoozed

I’m an easy mark for a lot of horror movies. Anything set during Halloween? Done. Something with cowboys fighting the supernatural? Obviously. Something involving an apocalypse? Duh. On the resume of Clancy Brown? JUST TRY AND STOP ME.

Also inevitable: anything on Netflix Instant that’s expiring. Hence today’s feature, the nondescript, no-longer-streaming The Skeptic.

Quick Plot: Bryan Becket (Tim Daly) is a jerk whose wealthy aunt mysteriously dies in her Victorian estate. Because he hates his now 40 year old wife, likes money, and seems to really enjoy bothering others, Bryan decides to move in to sell off some of his aunt’s heirlooms.

A minor setback rears its head when Bryan grumpily discovers his aunt has bequeathed the home to a psychic research institute. Couple that with insomnia, ghostly voices around the house, and the fact that Tom Arnold is his partner and one can understand why Bryan is such a grouch.

There are also quite a few unanswered questions surrounding his mother’s death, something psychic-in-training Zoe Saldana shows up uninvited to help investigate. Aided by some repressed memories courtesy of shrink Edward Herrmann and clues that include a creepy doll, Bryan slowly comes to terms with his past.

The Skeptic was ultimately released by IFC Films, although it feels like it would have found a much more appropriate audience via Lifetime or CBS. Daly gives a hard-working performance and writer/director Tennyson Bardwell is certainly trying to find a new angle for haunted houses, but the final product just feels rather dull. There's nothing specifically wrong with it: the acting overall is fine, the cinematography looks great, and the dialogue doesn't feel overly forced. There's just nothing specifically interesting when you're actually watching the movie. In six months, I'll have an awfully hard time telling you a single thing about this film. Except maybe that I watched it.

Maybe...

High Points

Surprisingly, there are a few jump scares that are executed far better than one would expect from a pretty mediocre little ghost movie

Low Points

Did I mention this was a pretty mediocre little ghost movie?

Lessons Learned

Turning 40 will make a woman require emotion

Lawyers get off on logic

When someone just dies is not the time to badmouth them

Guys only cry when they go to Cooperstown

Rent/Bury/Buy

Do not mourn the expiration of The Skeptic on Netflix Instant. It is a death that, much like Bryan’s elderly aunt, doesn’t hurt anyone. This is as mediocre a ghost film as they come, although perhaps there’s something about the many television-friendly faces and quiet nature that might appeal to your own elderly aunt. So I suppose skip The Skeptic unless you’re an elderly aunt. Every film is made for someone, right?

Some Burning Sensations Are Not Meant To Be Ignored

STDs: one of the most horrifying dangers in the real world that can happen to anybody.

STDs in horror movies: one of the most horrifying dangers of the real world that really should be explored further.

Quick Plot: Twentysomething Sam isn’t in the best life place. Her sexy Australian girlfriend Nikki has become distant, her conservative mother is nagging, a past drug problem is cautiously haunting her, and a letter of acceptance for a competitive flower growing contest (go with it) hasn’t arrived in the mail. Such stress rends her easy prey to a lurking party crasher who passes her a mysterious red solo cup before committing date rape in the backseat of his car.

Despite her green thumb, nothing is coming up roses for poor Sam.

Things for from bad to really, really, super really did I say REALLY? terrible once Sam discovers signs of an infection. What starts as a rash and untimely vaginal bleeding quickly escalates into loose teeth, bloodshot eyeballs, ringing ears, and...well, let’s just say that actress Najarra Townsend is a very pretty young woman. 

Samantha three days into an unnamed sexually transmitted disease is...

Absolutely horrifying.

Written and directed by Eric England, Contracted is a short and incredibly focused spin on body horror. As Sam, Townsend occupies virtually every frame of the film and she equips herself quite well by not playing the part as a wounded ingenue. Samantha is confused, having recently identified herself as a lesbian only to find her greatest love slipping away. Avoiding any flashbacks or straight exposition, it’s up to the audience to piece her life together and England’s rather subtle choices make that (for the most part) quite easy and natural. We don’t need to hear about a drug addiction when a few trail marks tell us the same, just as Nkki's boredom with Sam is obvious from her performance, not dialog. Such developments demonstrate England to be quite a promising young filmmaker in being able to give us content without the obvious.

Also, yuck. 

Viral horror is rife with potential when it comes to genre cinema. In the case of Contracted, the film is so carefully grounded in the specifics of Samantha’s life that every fingernail falloff is felt. Yes, Samantha makes some of the dumbest decisions ever  found in film, but once we see where her relationship with Nikki has gone, they make sense. Despite her youth, Sam sees Nikki as the only worthwhile aspect of her life and to actively seek help for her infection would reveal that she was, in her mind, unfaithful. 

Contracted never acknowledges the fact that Sam was raped, but perhaps that’s part of its point. Sam is so ashamed of what happened to her while binge drinking that she convinces herself to ignore what is obviously a serious, serious issue.

See what I mean?

Running less than 80 minutes in length, Contracted tells a quick, simple story with a neat amount of underlying subtext. England makes the most of a small budget by focusing his energy so carefully on one character. Perhaps the film could have pushed harder, but as a first effort from England, it’s a good start.

High Points

Best known to most of us as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2’s Stretch, Caroline Williams puts in a wonderful supporting performance as Sam’s judgmental (but deep down, rather loving) mom. It’s a wonderful coup for horror fans to see her here, but the fact that she handles the role with such personality makes it a win all around

Low Points

There’s something a little disappointing about the ending of Contracted in that (ambiguous spoiler), it ultimately closes on such a simple ‘horror movie’ note

Lessons Learned

Shots solve everything!

No, they actually don’t

Condoms. Really, truly, seriously, absolutely: condoms

Look! It’s-

Greendale College’s Dungeons & Dragons champion himself, Fat Neil! 

Rent/Bury/Buy

Now streaming on Netflix, Contracted is a fresh little film that makes for a solid, and very yucky watch. It will be exciting to see what else Eric England can do in the future with more resources in his arsenal. In the meantime, we'll just enjoy (and shudder at) this one.