DARK CRIMES (2016)

Directed by: Alexandros Avranas, Starring: Jim Carrey, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Marton Csokas. Crime/Drama/Thriller, Poland 2016, 89mins, Cert 18.

The last film I saw which starred Jim Carrey was MR POPPER’S PENGUINS. I liked that film far more than DARK CRIMES. Based on an article in ‘The New Yorker’ magazine, the script adds a fictional final twist which can be seen from a mile off in spite of the murky cinematography which accompanies this dour, ponderously paced, (non)thriller.

A wealthy businessman is murdered after attending a BDSM underground club called ‘The Cage’. Unsolved for a year, disgraced near-to-retirement detective Tadek (Jim Carrey) reopens the investigation partly to regain some of his lost honour, and partly to get one over on his superior. Kozlow, a controversial novelist (Marton Csokas), releases an audio book which appears to chronicle details concerning the murder which were never made public. Detective Tadek sets his sights on the author employing decidedly underhand tactics in order to get a confession out of him. In fact, so blinkered is Tadek in his pursuit that he fails to notice the toll his obsession is taking on his wife, daughter, and elderly dependent mother.

Straining with every sinew to suppress even a hint of expression, Jim Carrey is a shadow of his former self, even his beard emotes more. To be fair the script is so underwritten there’s little to get his teeth into, and minimal dialogue for his attempted Polish accent, although I did like the methodical way he clinically dissected his bacon and eggs in the morning.

Charlotte Gainsbourg steals the film as the author’s on/off girlfriend Kasia, displaying a searing vulnerable rawness of emotion. In one key scene, her bare shoulders alone out act Carrey, and I wondered whether the narrative might have worked better had her character been the central focus rather than Carrey’s (under)hardboiled detective.

The ‘18’ certificate is briefly earned through some glimpses of naked female torture and humiliation and a couple of frankly ludicrously staged sex-scenes, one of which features Carrey in a singularly unconvincing attempt to convey his moral degradation.

DARK CRIMES is a dark film: literally. Unfortunately, it’s under lit lack of colour extends into every aspect and as a result the final fictionalised reveal deserves little more than a shrugged ‘so-what?’ And as to why Carrey chose this underwhelming vehicle in the first place, frankly I’m completely in the dark.     

     

**(out of 5*)

Paul Worts

This review was first published by FRIGHTFEST.

THE SECRET OF MARROWBONE (2017) aka MARROWBONE

Directed by Sergio G. Sánchez, Starring: George MacKay, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Heaton.   Drama, Horror, Spain, 2017, 110mins, Cert 15.

Making his feature film debut ,Sergio G. Sánchez, the writer of THE ORPHANAGE, this time directs his own screenplay and delivers a beautifully melancholic tale of family secrets and the horrors that unfold from them. There’s more than a touch of Poe in the gothic proceedings, and a couple of genuinely chill-inducing moments of fright which are well-earned.

It’s 1969. Eldest son Jack (George MacKay), is entrusted with the welfare of his siblings, and instructed by his mother on her rasping deathbed to maintain the pretence of her still being alive until his 21^st birthday so he can become their legal guardian. Having left England for America, and having changed their name to that of their mother's childhood family home, ‘Marrowbone’, for a time their life seems relatively peaceful. However, a single rifle shot pierces the quietness, and signals a sinister turn of events that will irreparably scar Jack both psychically and mentally.

There’s a measured assurance in Sánchez’s direction, an instinctual sense of allowing the narrative to unfurl naturally, and giving the impressive young cast time to breathe life into their characters. Shrewd casting allows the film’s publicists to quote both Netflix’s STRANGER THINGS with Charlie Heaton playing Jack’s slightly younger brother Billy, and art house horror hit THE VVITCH by way of Anya Taylor-Joy as the local town librarian Allie, who makes quite an impression on the family, and especially on Jack. All the cast perform admirably, but George MacKay rightly takes centre stage as the conflicted young man burdened with responsibility, and wrestling with all-consuming guilt.

Visually, the widescreen canvas makes the most of the natural light and the dramatic Spanish vistas, shot in Asturias and Catalonia, provide an evocative and ethereal quality.

Sánchez pulls off a sleight of hand trick a third of the way into the film which reaps rich dividends in the final act, although not in a gimmicky M. Night Shyamalan way whereby the twist often appears as the raison d'être. By which point, most filmmakers would happily cut here, satisfied with their illusion, but Sánchez aims higher, and succeeds in presenting us with a bittersweet coda which is both heart-warming and poetically disturbing.

**** (out of 5*)

Paul Worts

MAYHEM (2017)

Directed by: Joe Lynch, Starring: Steven Yeun, Samara Weaving, Steven Brand, Caroline Chikezie. Action/horror, US 2017, 98mins, Cert 15.

A global virus strain known as ID-7 or the ‘Red-Eye’ virus causes the infected (‘redders’) to drop all their inhibitions, resulting in baser instincts rising to the surface, or as our narrator Derek Cho (Steven Yeun) summarises: “...basic human dignity takes a sick leave”.

Ambitious ’suit’ Derek has worked his way up the corporate ladder at a morally dubious legal firm. Promotion and a coveted corner office come a calling when Derek employs a legal loophole to clear an infected ‘redder’ of murder on the grounds that a person under the influence of ID-7 cannot be responsible for their actions. (That’ll prove to be very important for Derek later on). But despite this inspired legal precedent setting chicanery, Derek is subsequently stitched up for a cock-up with a major client’s account by ruthless arch-rival Kara ‘The Siren’ (Caroline Chikezie). Finding himself being unceremoniously fired, Derek is about to be escorted off the firm’s premise when an outbreak of the Red-Eye virus is detected in the building and an 8-hour quarantine is imposed by Hazmat suited armed guards whilst a neutraliser is pumped into the buildings ventilation system.

Joe Lynch’s visceral corporate satire wastes little time in laying out its stall as we are treated to an opening slow-motion monochrome (and crimson red) tableaux illustrating the potential consequences of the ID-7 strain on an ordinary office environment. Orchestrated to the sounds of Rossini’s ‘The Thieving Magpie’ (one of Kubrick’s musical go-tos in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE), Lynch’s montage of  ultra-violence and unrestrained sexual gratification in a seemingly ordinary sterile office space succinctly previews the chaos and mayhem yet to be unleashed on, around, and by Steven Yeun. Fans of ‘The Walking Dead’ still reeling from his character’s brutal demise by barbed-wire baseball bat will surely relish seeing Yeun dishing out a considerable amount of violence himself as formerly mild(ish)-mannered Derek on fellow office employees as he fights tooth and nail to reach the top floor and seek justice from the firm’s tyrannical overlord (Steven Brand). In this bloody quest he is ably accompanied by Samara (The BABYSITTER) Weaving, who originally came to Cho to plead for an extension to pay off a loan before being caught up in the Red-Eye delirium and ends up nail gunning her way alongside him.

Lynch awards himself an amusing minor role as the underappreciated and under-resourced ‘IT guy’ Ray who can hack into the board of trustees files once he can be dissuaded to put down the keyboard he’s belting the living daylights out of. (Fellow FrightFest alumni Adam Green also appears in a blink and you’ll miss it cameo).

Once the Red-Eye kicks in after about the 25-minute mark, the film glides seemingly effortlessly from one often violent office encounter to another with rarely any let-up. Despite this, the actual amount of on-screen gore is surprisingly restrained, and a couple of key villainous character’s demises are coyly rendered off-screen. This is an interesting choice on the part of Lynch, which occasional subverts and denies the expected crowd-pleasing beats.  

Whilst the subject of office-based horror/satire is not an untrodden path e.g. THE BELKO EXPERIMENT and BLOODSUCKING BASTARDS, Lynch’s modestly budgeted DIE HARD meets 9 TO 5 take is slick, sharp and as entertaining as hell. Perfect viewing after a hard day at the office. 

****(OUT OF 5*)

Paul Worts

This review was first published by FrightFest.

THE OLD DARK HOUSE (1932)

Directed by: James Whale, Starring: Boris Karloff, Melvyn

Douglas, Gloria Stuart, Charles Laughton. Horror/Comedy, US 1932, 72mins, Cert PG.

“Have a potato!”

Watching THE OLD DARK HOUSE for the first time courtesy of this stunning 4K restoration Blu-ray was quite a sentimental experience for me. My late father would often recall the film with a wistful fondness whenever I asked him about horror films he’d seen in his youth. (He was 12 when the film was released, but I’m not sure exactly when he first saw it). Considering all the splatter and gore I made him sit through with me on VHS in the 1980’s it’s hardly surprising the poor man looked back with fond nostalgia for the more gentile horrors conjured up by James Whale!

The first thought that strikes me upon watching the film is that the actual horror is somewhat perfunctory. Yes the classic elements are all in place, a stormy inhospitable night, a remote cut-off location with a spooky old dark house, a facially scarred menacing mute butler (Karloff), and a family secret locked away in the attic. Yet the stagey dialogue (screenplay by Benn W. Levy based on the novel ‘Benighted’ from J.B. Priestley) is positively bristling with pithy exchanges and a liberal sprinkling of camp – the latter of which is mostly provided by Ernest Thesiger and his wondrously expressive nostrils as Horace “Have a potato” Femm. Like a gothic Kenneth Williams, the flickering flames and candle-light accentuate his bird-like features alarmingly well. Credit where it’s due then to Whale and his cinematographer collaborator Arthur Edeson (FRANKENSTEIN, THE INVISIBLE MAN), who wring every drop of gothic atmosphere from their cavernous mansion with billowing drapes and bolted rooms of mystery. 

The plot, a gossamer thread upon which Whale spins his theatrical web of camp comedic social satire, is a classic established trope of the horror genre. A group of stranded travellers, married couple Philip and Margaret Waverton (Raymond Massey and Gloria Stuart) and gooseberry Penderel (Melvyn Douglas), abandon their car after torrential rain causes a landslide forcing them to seek shelter at the Femm ancestral home. Once ensconced around a warming fire and tucking into a hearty plate of beef and potatoes, they are joined by Sir William Porterhouse (Charles Laughton) and his chorus-line companion Gladys (Lilian Bond) who are similarly stranded. Their somewhat reluctant hosts are the twitchy nervy Horace (Thesiger), his deaf, religiously fanatical sister Rebecca “No beds!” (Eva Moore), and Boris Karloff’s grunting alcoholic butler. Upstairs lurks the 102 year-old father of Horace and Rebecca (played by actress Elspeth Dudgeon) and behind a further locked door lurks the other Femm family member, Saul (Brember Wills), a pyromaniac in true ‘Jane Eyre’ fashion.

After his hugely successful adaption of Mary Shelley’s ‘Modern Prometheus’, James Whale was given near carte blanche with this picture and he seems to have jolly well run riot with his humorous sensibilities. That’s not to say there aren’t moments of pure gothic horror. A stunning scene of shadow play and a bone-chilling description by Eva Moore of a how a sibling died in agony provide genuine menace in amongst the near-farcical comings and goings on.

It’s a splendidly entertaining spritely 72 minutes, ripe and rich in both dialogue and atmosphere, and gorgeously restored in this pristine 4K restoration which makes a visit to THE OLD DARK HOUSE irresistible.    

 
 **** (Out of 5*)

Paul Worts

BRAVEN (2018)

Directed by: Lin Oeding, Starring: Jason Momoa, Stephen

Lang, Garret Dillahunt, Jill Wagner. Action, Canada 2017, 94mins, Cert 15.

Straw Logs

If you fancied having your photo taken with bearded beefcake Jason (‘Aquaman’) Momoa and his autograph on an 8x10 at London Film and Comic Con in July 2018, it would have set you back £150. On the other hand , you could instead have picked up a copy of this modest yet competent DTV revenge actioner for a fraction of the price.

Joe Braven is a hard-working rugged Newfoundland logging family man. When he’s not supervising his tree-felling business, he’s at home playing snowballs with his beautiful wife Stephanie (Jill Wagner), falling asleep whilst reading bedtime stories to his sweet young daughter Charlotte, and getting increasingly concerned about his ‘pops’ Linden (Stephen Lang). Unfortunately pops is displaying increasingly Alzheimer-like symptoms which come to a head (and result in stitches to his) when they cause him to get duffed up in a bar after mistaking a random female patron for his deceased wife. Having extrapolated pops from aforementioned brawl by displaying some impressive muscle flexing, Joe decides it’s time to take pops up to his hunting cabin in the woods for some father-son bonding and to raise the thorny issue of supervised care for pops. Unfortunately a gang of drug traffickers have stashed a sack load of heroin in the cabin, and they’re rather anxious to retrieve it: at all costs. 

The criminals are led by Garret Dillahunt’s ‘Kassen’, a man so ruthless he ignores a waitresses’ reproach for smoking in a diner, and rather more ominously thinks nothing of repeatedly slamming an incompetent accomplice’s face down into the table in full view of the diner’s clientele!

So, after 45 minutes of patient set-up, Joe Braven eventually gets to be brave as a stakeout siege unfolds around the snowbound cabin. The stakes are raised higher still when Joe realises his daughter has snuck along for the ride – and wife Stephanie isn’t far behind either. Time then for Joe to get busy improvising with bow and arrow, axe, and in one audaciously daft sequence, a bear-trap, as he and sharp-shooting sniper/hunter pops defend the cabin against the heavily armed drug mob.

The stunning snowbound Newfoundland locations provide a visually arresting backdrop against which Jason Momoa and a well-drilled troop of stuntmen stage some reasonably decent action sequences. Momoa acquits himself convincingly enough in both the family man scenes and when going mano a mano against the one dimensional baddies. Thundering through the woods like a man mountain and hurling flaming pick axes with aplomb, I couldn’t help think Momoa would make a formidable Jason Voorhees if Paramount ever gets their act together and commission another instalment. Mind you, would Momoa agree to hiding his chiselled jawbone by donning a hockey mask and keeping his sculptured musculature under wraps whilst chopping up camp counsellors?

Stephen Lang reliably adds value as Momoa’s vulnerable dad, managing to wring some genuine pathos out of a largely by-the-numbers script before his future care dilemma is unceremoniously solved. Jill Wagner chips in with a feisty and welcome late-turn in the archery department too. 

One aspect of the production that niggled me was the actual hunting cabin which gave the appearance it was newly built rather than the ye oldie hunting lodge where father and son supposedly bonded for years. (Watching the extras my suspicions were confirmed, it was indeed custom-constructed for the film). Given the implausible mayhem occurring on screen, this might sound like pedantic nitpicking, but it took me out of the narrative at times when it really need not have. But freshly built IKEA cabin aside, overall it’s a solid undemanding piece of ‘15’ rated violent(ish) entertainment.

Could it launch a franchise ala Liam Neeson’s TAKEN? Who knows? But if DC’s upcoming AQUAMAN proves to be a washout, [it wasn't, I really enjoyed it] Momoa can always keep his head and rippling shoulders above water with stuff like BRAVEN - or appearances at comic cons.

*** (out of 5*)

Paul Worts

This review was originally published by FrightFest.

TERRIFIER (2016)

Directed by: Damien Leone, Starring: David Howard

Thornton, Jenna Kanell, Catherine Corcoran, Katie Maguire. Horror, US 2016, 81mins, Cert 18.

Writer/director Damien Leone’s unapologetically gory grindhouse homage features a killer clown named ‘Art’ who makes Captain Spaulding and Pennywise look like children’s entertainers, and the Chiodo Brothers’ outer space incarnations positively E.T. like!

Originally (and wholly appropriately), programmed as the late-night curtain closer at last year’s Halloween FrightFest, this pared-down uber-gruesome stalk-and-slash may well pay tribute to Craven, Romero and Hooper in its closing credits, but it feels closer in tone to Herschell Gordon Lewis given the amount of onscreen viscera.

Dawn (Catherine Corcoran, RETURN TO NUKE ‘EM HIGH VOLUME 1&2), and her friend Tara (Jenna Kanell, THE BYE BYE MAN), are heading home from a Halloween party when they encounter creepy mime artist clown ‘Art’ (David Howard Thornton), who takes a shine to Tara and follows them to a pizzeria where the girls are having a late night sobering-up snack. Tara is especially freaked out by the unspeaking clown, and speculates as to what the contents of the large sack he carries around might be. Unfortunately for both her, Dawn, and practically everyone who encounters ‘Art’ this Halloween night, they are all about to (very) gruesomely find out...

Colourised and scored to evoke a 1980’s vibe, albeit with smart phones and selfies, writer/director Damien Leone certainly succeeds in evoking the tone of such offerings as William Lustig’s MANIAC, and for us nostalgic Brits, it would definitely have been labelled a ‘video nasty’.

Leone’s killer clown had already appeared in his earlier short films and in his feature debut ALL HALLOWS’ EVE (albeit played by a different actor), but does ‘Art’ have horror icon potential? Well he’s apparently indestructible, unspeaking, well-versed in the use of multi-various tools for slaughtering random victims, and just may possess supernatural powers of regeneration: so he ticks most of the right boxes. (He lacks any kind of back-story, but hey, ask Rob Zombie what happened when he grafted one onto ‘The Shape’). He’s certainly creepy, but to me he lacks the physical presence to command a franchise, and when did Jason, Michael or Freddy have to resort to using a handgun to gain the upper-hand?

Art’s mayhem is however incredibly graphic, with an unflinching depiction of a dissection by hacksaw of a naked female victim suspended upside down being the grotesque Grand Guignol highlight in a welter of practically rendered slaughterhouse splatter.

It’s nastier and less fun than the over the top silliness of say for example Juan Piquer Simon’s PIECES, and ultimately its inherent mean spiritedness may prevent it from having true staying power. You only have to look at the fate meted out to the film’s ‘final girl’ for evidence of this. But it's certainly a gore hounds wet dream. And whether or not you see a metaphor in one early scene whereby ‘Art’ writes his name on a toilet wall with excrement, it’s hard to remove the shear unpleasantness of it from your mind.

***(out of 5* 

Paul Worts

Originally published by FrightFest.

A QUIET PLACE (2018)

Directed by: John Krasinski, Starring: Emily Blunt, John

Krasinski, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe. Horror, US 2018, 90mins, cert 15.

Released in cinemas in the UK from 5^th April 2018 by Paramount Pictures. 

Rarely have I sat in a cinema with such a reverent silence from fellow patrons as that I experienced whilst watching John Krasinski’s nail-biting suspenser. 

The set-up is simple enough. A post-apocalyptic scenario whereby a family are trying to survive without making any sounds which will attract the aural predatory attentions of alien creatures which hunt through their hyper-sensitive hearing. 

The three aces up director and co-star Kransinski’s sleeve are firstly the assured handling of sound (and often the lack of). Secondly, the careful measured portrayal of the family dynamic, mostly sketched through sign-language with only a minimal amount of spoken dialogue (ironically delivering more rounded characters than we are usually graced with in horror films). And thirdly, the heightened sense of scripted peril and the near-forensic attention to the little details all finely attuned to ring out every last potential drop of suspense and perceived danger. 

Alongside Kransinski, his real-life wife Emily Blunt plays the mother, who brilliantly and near-silently sells excruciatingly toe-cringing suffering in sequences such as the upwardly protruding nail in the barefoot and the enforced bloodied bathtub entrapment. Her eldest child is her daughter, superbly played by Millicent Simmonds. Both character and actress are deaf. It’s a pivotal role, refreshingly notn one-dimensional, and Simmonds delivers a brilliant performance of both strength and vulnerability which provides the core around which the entire family are intertwined. Her younger brother is essayed by Noah Jupe, who also pitches in with a sympathetic portrayal of a (naturally) scared kid, desperately trying to suppress his fears to his father.

The bottom line is we care about these characters, which makes their predicament far more engaging and involving, and my (often) clenched knuckles were all the more whiter as a result. 

Yes there are a couple of LOUD jump-scares liable to induce abrupt unintentional redistributions of popcorn into laps, but they are well-earned, and justifiable within the context of the film’s premise.

The creature design is excellent, coyly introduced at first with quick blurred glimpses before ratcheting up to shredding claws and finally to hideously full-bodied reveals. Onscreen gore and blood is judiciously employed minimally to convey internal trauma and suffering, and in one brief moment the aftermath consequence of creature assault. But it’s the startlingly assured deployment of audio threat which is the real trick which draws you in and keeps you hooked in nervous unity with the onscreen characters. 

A QUIET PLACE is a film worth (quietly) shouting about. 

****(out of 5*)

  Paul Worts