Tales From the Southbound

The renaissance of the horror anthology has been wonderful in spirit and mostly terrible in execution. Following the fan love for Michael Daughery's Trick or Treat, it seemed as though every genre filmmaker under 40 was contributing to one collection or another, from the grainy V/H/S series to the often insufferable output of The ABCs of Death.

Needless to say, I've found modern anthologies disappointing (and occasionally, infuriating). But that doesn't mean I've given up on them just yet. 

Story 1: The Way Out
Directed by the trio Radio Silence (they of the disappointing Devil's Due and the 10/31/98 segment of the first V/H/S), The Way Out follows a pair of men on the run from what appears to be an unidentified crime. As they speed their rickety pickup truck down a deserted highway, they are pursued by strange floating skeletal creatures that follow them right inside an ominous gas station.

We'll get back to this.

Story 2: Siren
A trio of young women break down on that same lonely highway, accepting a ride from an oddly sunny 1950s-esque couple who take them back to an ominous meatloaf dinner. Something is clearly amiss, but there seems to be an added weight in how their presumed leader played by Starry Eyes' passive aggressive rival, Fabianne Therese) is seen as being responsible for the untimely death of one of their members. Directed by first timer Roxanne Benjamin, Siren has some fun with its almost Parents-ish vibe. It also feels the most incomplete, as it offers up a lot of unanswered questions. While I generally believe one of the the keys to anthology segments (much like short stories) to be telling a complete tale in under 30 minutes, this was definitely the one story I wanted to see more of.

Story 3: The Accident
The Signal's David Bruckner directs this tight little tale about an ill-fated and too easily distracted man named Lucas whose cell phone chat with his wife leads to him smashing into a young lady in the middle of nowhere (well, Southbound's hell-ish highway). After some internal debating, Lucas calls emergency services and spends the rest of his evening trying to save his victim in an abandoned hospital with only the mysterious, not-quite-right dispatcher voices to guide him.

While it doesn't necessarily do much, The Accident was my personal favorite segment of the bunch. Mather Zickel's Lucas toes an interesting line between being a guilty manslaughterer and a poor unlucky bastard, while the ambiguity of the dispatch voices are just odd enough to keep you on edge. Anthologies are almost always morality tales, and this one serves as a different spin on that idea.

Also, death gurgles are intense.

Story 4: Jailbreak
Patrick Horvath (The Pact 2) directs this one. A raging man storms into a worn-down bar demanding to see his long-lost sister Jesse. The bartender (Orange Is the New Black's Matt Peters) agrees to drive him down that familiar highway to where Jesse is working as a sort of satanic tattoo artist (or something?). It's hard to say too much more without giving away some of the bigger happenings, but let's just say that when your little sister disappears down a highway to hell lorded over by floating skeleton people and bar werewolves, maybe it's best to leave her put.

Story 5: The Way In (aka Story 1: Part 2)A seemingly normal couple is spending a family weekend in a rented home with their teenage daughter before she goes to college. Before they can sit down to their last supper, three masked men show up for some violent payback. The story plays like a fairly standard home invasion, but much like Siren, it also drops some mysterious clues without revealing all of their details.

Overall, Southbound offers a fresh and easily watchable take on the anthology format. Each story leads into the other in an organic way and while there's not a specific wraparound tool used to tie everything together, the themes and basic idea of this purgatory-like road to hell work extremely well when all put together. The styles and tones are more complimentary than consistent, which helps the full picture add up to something fresh.

High Points
As grouches continue to whine about the lack of good horror in the modern era, one can point to the credits of the cast and crew of Southbound to show connections to a slew of good-to-great genre films of late: actors from Starry Eyes, YellowBrickRoad, The Signal, and a few more (not to mention the film's wraparound DJ voice is done by none other than Larry Fessenden)

Low Points
We can't hit all of our CGI out of the park, but sometimes it hurts when almost all of it fouls

Lessons Learned
You know, don't kill innocent people and you won't go to hell or be forced to relieve a horrible monster chase for eternity

Rent/Bury/BuyAfter my increasing embitterment over the new age of jerky bro-tastic anthologies, Southbound is an extremely pleasant little renewal of faith in the genre. The film isn't perfect, but it's a good ride. You can find it on Amazon Prime.

There Ain't No Hole In a Jug Face

A horror film set in the backwoods that DOESN'T involve pretty white tourists or a number after its title?

Count me in.

Quick Plot: Somewhere in the woods of southern America lives a clan of semi-civilized folks practicing a sort of He Who Walks Behind the Rows-esque faith. We learn most of the details in a hauntingly beautiful credits sequence that displays oil crayon drawings narrating the families' history.

Some time in the past, people were dying of smallpox. Naturally, the best solution anyone could find was to have one of its citizens craft moonshine jugs in a trance state. If and when the potter produced a jug that bore the face of someone in the community, it was deemed that The Pit--which is exactly what it sounds like, minus the sociopath teddy bear, trollogs, and obnoxious little boys--wanted said model's blood. Said model had his or her throat slit over The Pit, and smallpox was eradicated.

Traditions die hard, but they die harder than John McClane's attitude in the backwoods of Tennessee. In the present day, these, well, juggalos, of a sort, continue to live by the rules of The Pit, occasionally sacrificing one of their own when the current potter Dawai (played by The Woman's Sean Bridgers in a role that couldn't be further from his misogynist patriarch in that film) matches his creations to a resident. 

This is, as you might expect, a problem in a small interwoven community where there can only be so many jugfaces for so many jugs. Young Ada (played by another Woman refugee, the wonderful Lauren Ashley Carter) learns this the hard way when she discovers she's next for The Pit. Complicating matters is the fact that she's also been set to 'be joined' with the only male around her age who isn't related to her, and further by the fact that she's a few secret months pregnant with the baby of the only male around her age who IS related to her. 

Move over, Bella Swan: this chick has REAL problems. 

Running just over 80 minutes, debut filmmaker Chad Crawford Kinkle's Jug Face tells a tight story while creating a much bigger world. We don't get a detailed history of this community--they don't even a name, come to think of it--but Kinkle's skill at fleshing out their world without flourishing it is incredibly impressive. We don't NEED Ada's fascinating but silent grandfather to flash back to previous generations. Everything that matters exists in these characters' faces.

It's here where Kinkle demonstrates a lot of talent, not just in his storytelling efficiency but also in his casting. Carter has one of those faces that every director should love, with deeply expressive eyes that can convey layers of history without dialogue. Ada isn't necessarily a likable character; her choices lead to the death of several innocent characters, and she continues to make them even after she recognizes this. In another actress's hands, Jug Face would be a tough film to connect with. Sure, we're on Ada's side because who wants to have their throat slit over a bloody hole, but when you think of the greater good, should we be?

Jug Face was made after it won a screenplay contest, and it's easy to see why. In the realm of rote American horror, this is an original tale. The film has some weaknesses (primarily in the final execution of some of its more supernatural details) but overall, it succeeds at being engaging, disturbing, and most importantly, fresh. It's such a pleasure to be able to say that. 

High Points

It's always nice to see horror's fairy godfather Larry Fessenden onscreen, and he does not disappoint here. As Ada's father, Fessenden gets to create a fully rounded character in playing both a responsible community leader deeply devoted to his faith, and a genuinely caring dad charged with making some truly awful decisions

There's a jug band musical sequence that involves spoons and washboards, and it is fabulous

Low Points

So without spoiling anything, at some point in Jug Face, there's a ghost and it's just as cheesy as you really don't want it to be

Lessons Learned

No man will ever get to bear babies

Always know where the red paint is stored, particularly if an engagement is in your near future

The only thing worse than being jug faced by your friend, whipped by your dad, and impregnated and abandoned by your brother is having Sean Young for your mom

Rent/Bury/Buy

Jug Face isn't a great horror film, but it's so fresh in its premise and strong in creating its universe that I'm simply thrilled to recommend it. It also benefits tremendously from an outstanding cast that takes the film seriously, something you don't always find in the lower budget realm of horror. It's now on Instant Watch and well worth that quick 80 minute stream.