oldsharky

Abigail (2024)

“What are we talking about, like an Anne Rice or a True Blood? You know, Twilight? Very different kinds of vampires.”

So wonders Sammy (Kathryn Newton), one of a crew of professional criminals hired to kidnap the 12-year-old daughter (Alisha Weir) of a powerful crime boss.

This isn’t one of those vampire movies where the characters behave like they’ve never seen a vampire movie.

Quite the opposite, and directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett use the opportunity to remind us that maybe we don’t know shit about Nosferatu Nation.

“The thing about being a vampire is, it takes a long time to learn how to do the cool shit,” explains Abigail, the ballerina from hell at the center of the horror-thriller-comedy that bears her name.

Abigail is a blast, and way too freaking much fun not to earn my humble endorsement.

A group of Usual Suspects are promised $50 million to snatch the fancy dancing Abigail and bring her to a safe house to await a ransom payment from her father, Kristof Lazaar, a legendary criminal mastermind spoken of with Keyser Sozé reverence.

There’s Frank (Dan Stevens), the leader, a paranoid ex-undercover cop; Joey (Melissa Barrera), the empathetic army doctor trying to kick a drug habit. Peter (Kevin Durand), is a massive mob leg-breaker, Rickles (Will Catlett), a Marine sharpshooter, Sammy, the cute punky hacker chick, and Dean (Angus Cloud), a loose-cannon getaway driver.

The crooks, forced to hole up, quickly get on each others’ nerves with well-written, zesty crook dialogue leading us to believe we’re watching a hard-boiled caper flick, like, The Usual Suspects.

The similarities don’t end there.

As the captors settle in for a 24-hour babysitting gig, the frightened little girl reveals herself to be a vicious, sadistic bloodsucker who wants to “play with her food.”

We’re swept along as the tiny dancer turns the tables, easily terrorizing and dominating the band of seasoned professionals, usually accompanied by the thunderous strains of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake.

It is at this point that Abigail reaches its comedic zenith, and it’s a dilly.

Joey: Why didn’t she kill you?

Frank: She is fucking with us!

Joey: I’m guessing none of the weapons worked.

Frank: Well, the stake worked on my fucking leg, and she used the crucifix on Peter like a fucking pincushion and the garlic did fuck all!

Amidst the copious blood-letting , savage sucking, and decapitation, bargains are made and broken as further scheming by henchmen complicates the caper considerably.

And then her father shows up, and we get some tips on the finer points of parenting. Abigail moves at a breathless pace, only slowing occasionally for a tactical pause before further mutilation occurs.

I’m clapping. Really!

Warm Bodies (2013)

Mrs. Sharky wanted to watch a romantic comedy. Uh oh.

I said, “What’s in it for me?”

This is the type of give-and-take situation we domesticated adults must consider every single day, and believe me, it ain’t easy.

Fortunately, my painstaking research turned up Warm Bodies, a zesty Canadian zom-rom-com that actually checked all the boxes for both our discerning tastes.

What a find!

Written and directed by Jonathan Levine, and based on a novel by Seattle writer Isaac Marion, Warm Bodies is the story of R (Nicholas Hoult), an unusually thoughtful zombie who wanders around an airport with his fellow undead shufflers, after a plague or virus or something turns a majority of the population into brain-eating ghouls.

“What am I doing with my life?” he wonders in narration. “I’m so pale. I should get out more. I should eat better. My posture is terrible. I should stand up straighter. People would respect me more if I stood up straighter. What’s wrong with me? I just want to connect. Why can’t I connect with people? Oh, right, it’s because I’m dead.”

One fateful day, R impulsively rescues Julie (Teresa Palmer), an armed forager, from a pack of his hungry brethren and takes her to safety. This single act of compassion from a walking dead human changes everything we thought we knew about the entire zombie genre.

Indeed, it starts a movement of humanism among the dead, as long-deceased folks begin to feel—different. Something is stirring inside.

Warm Bodies could fit snugly inside AMC’s The Walking Dead universe as a diverting subplot. Julie, the daughter of General Grigio (John Malkovich), leader of the militaristic human resistance falls for R, the zombie who ate her boyfriend’s brain.

R and Julie? Try Romeo and Juliet. There’s even a balcony scene.

I’m as surprised as anyone that I dug Warm Bodies as much as I did. It’s funny, well-written, kinda scary, and uplifting as hell. That’s not just a difficult balancing act, it’s a rarely occurring cinematic event.

A horror movie that you can snuggle your honey through.

Alien: Covenant (2017)

Yech!

Even with Ridley Scott directing, Alien: Covenant is another flop from a franchise that needs fresh blood more than Dracula.

Maybe we should blame Michael Fassbinder who gets to chew twice as much scenery in the dual role of Walter (the helpful, supportive android) and David (the amoral narcissist android).

Ten years after the events of Prometheus, which was also terrible, a new crew of explorers and sleeping deep-space colonists get a fragmented distress signal from a nearby habitable planet.

Surprise! It’s a trap! Didn’t see that one coming, did you?

Though there is space allotted for character development, nobody in the crew stands out from the usual trope type, except perhaps for Tennessee (Danny McBride), a good ol’ boy pilot in a beat-up cowboy hat.

See also: Lisa Standing (Kimberly Scott) in James Cameron’s The Abyss (1989).

There’s Captain Oram (Billy Crudup), a nervous newbie destined for failure; his second-in-command, Daniels (Katherine Waterston), still grieving her recently deceased husband, and Walter (Fassbinder), the android science officer who does most of the work.

We also get a bunch of Shemps, including Callie Hernandez, with very little to do other than perish.

Alien: Covenant attempts to re-create that ol’ black magic, but writers John Logan and Dante Harper spend too much time constructing familiar-looking scenes that hopefully resonate with long-suffering fans of the series. Consequently, there isn’t much of a story to hang your hat on, other than David’s mad ambitions.

There are elements aplenty wrangled from the first two (best) Alien films, including face huggers, gory birth sequences, automatic weapons, and renegade robots, but these never coalesce into anything able to stand on its own.

There’s the crew. The ship. The planet. The androids. Once again, the xenomorphs become an afterthought. In the final analysis, there is too much android angst and not nearly enough creature chaos, though it is a better-looking film than Prometheus.

The Alien series is stuck in a deep-space rut and could definitely use a change of scenery. I’ll let you know if there’s any intelligent life onboard after Alien: Romulus.

Frogman (2023)

Hey, you guys! Look at this footage I found!

Through a magical editing process, Frogman brings together all the filmed components of a quest to locate a legendary cryptid that allegedly inhabits the swampier suburbs of Loveland, Ohio.

Amateur filmmaker and daydreamer Dallas Kyle (Nathan Tymochuk) is worried that his career peaked as a child, when he snapped a photograph of a mysterious amphibian creature while on a trip with his parents.

It happened near Loveland, Ohio, a small town that stays afloat financially by luring v-loggers, podcasters, documentarians, and other media soakers to have a look around for their slimy mascot.

Tired of the world at large perceiving him as a kooky kid with a camera, Dallas decides to go back to Loveland and shoot a hard-hitting documentary about the Loveland Frogman.

Accompanying Dallas is his wedding photographer drinking buddy, Scottie (Benny Barrett), and his longtime friend and secret crush, Amy (Chelsey Grant), who is ostensibly on her way to Los Angeles to become an actress.

Inspired by Dallas’s passion to create something meaningful, the trio saddles up and checks in at a charming Loveland B&B run by Gretel (Chari Eckmann), an enthusiastic dame who acts as an unofficial tour guide for all things related to the Frogman.

As we see all too often, a lark expedition with three friends turns into a very nasty little trip (trap).

It’s easy enough to classify Frogman as a found-footage descendant of The Blair Witch Project, as it sticks to the interview-vs-wilderness template pretty closely.

If we look back to the earlier part of the previous century, it also bears some resemblance to Lovecraft’s Shadow Over Innsmouth, in which a nameless tourist stumbles into a dilapidated fishing village populated by folks with an unsettling “batrachian” appearance.

I believe writer-director Anthony Cousins purposely designed Frogman to dig deeper and bite harder than Blair Witch. It definitely establishes a darker shade of horror, especially after the viewer pieces together all the awful implications.

A big ol’ recommendation from Ol’ Sharky.

Nope (2022)

Maybe the world isn’t ready for a sci-fi/horror Western starring a nonwhite cast, but I sure as hell am.

Writer-director Jordan Peele muses on a number of subjects in Nope, some in subtle fashion, others with blunt force trauma.

Otis Junior (OJ, played by Daniel Kaluuya) is a hard-working fella who runs the Haywood family horse training business somewhere in the California desert, following the recent passing of his father (Keith David) under mysterious circumstances.

His wayward sister Emerald (Keke Palmer) is trying to help out, but the fast-talking urbanite hype gal and the plainspoken cowboy are clearly not on the same page when it comes to getting work, resulting in a blown TV audition for one of their horses.

Not too far away, Ricky “Jupe” Park (Steven Yeun), a former child actor, runs an amusement park-frontier theme town. Park, a frequent customer of Haywood’s Hollywood Horses, lets OJ know that he would be interested in buying his entire operation.

These are the dramatic bones that make up the story, and Peele does his utmost to flesh out the situation by sensibly introducing creatures from another world on safari for exotic culinary specimens.

Time to cowboy up!

Peele delivers a ton of thematic groceries to the table, and it’s good eating. The pursuit of fame regardless of personal danger, appears to be his thesis statement, as both OJ and Ricky Park want to exploit the alien menace that hovers nearby for their own gain.

Fortunately, OJ comes to his senses. Others aren’t so lucky.

Nope stretches over two hours but Peele keeps everything smelling fresh. He definitely flexes a fondness for John Ford and Steven Spielberg, with bright, postcard vistas from the mysterious desert contrasted with tight indoor framing that clearly defines two different worlds—tamed and untamed.

Peele’s stinging observations about the invisibility of blacks and other minorities in the history of the motion picture industry are squarely on topic, and he remedies this historical omission with a brave black cowboy hero for us to root for.

When was the last time we saw one of those outside of Blazing Saddles?

The Haunting Lodge (2023)

A beleaguered Georgia landowner summons a husband-wife team of investigators to document possible paranormal parties driving away his customers at a remote hunting lodge.

The hunters are scared of ghosts that noisily walk around at night, and whose presence is felt by virtually everyone who stays there.

Filmmakers Kendall and Vera Whelpton set up shop in the antler-festooned farmhouse, promptly noting atmospheric changes on their EMF readers, and seemingly making contact with an entity that flashes lights in response to questions.

Eventually the Whelptons bring in a rather theatrical psychic, Jill Morris, who makes her own connections into the spirit realm that causes a minor metaphysical ruckus.

Keep in mind, The Haunting Lodge is a DOCumentary and not a MOCKumentary.

The Whelptons maintain that what we are watching is a genuine event, a legitimately filmed paranormal happening.

Therefore, the doors opening and closing by themselves, accompanied by the sounds of booted feet marching down the hallway, are real ghosts.

And there are a few glimpses of beings (?) that appear and move digitally through the darkness.

With plenty of “Did you see that?” moments, the footage allows disbelief to be temporarily and precariously suspended.

Actually, it doesn’t matter if you believe what you see here. It’s the storytelling equivalent of saying, “I swear! It’s true! It happened to my Mom’s cousin’s sister!”

In any case, The Haunting Lodge clocks in at a lean 67 minutes, so it’s not much of a time investment.

Infested (2023)

Even Stephen King loves Infested!

So how come I don’t?

French filmmaker Sebastien Vanicek spins an undeniably creepy tale about the rag-tag residents of a dilapidated apartment building besieged by Middle-Eastern spiders that reproduce at an alarming rate.

Our hero, Kaleb (Théo Christine), is an exotic animal fancier and sneaker pimp with a troubled personal life. Seeking to numb his sorrows with a little retail therapy, he buys an expensive spider from a shady agent and promptly loses the little bugger once he gets home.

Next thing you know, there are spiders everywhere! Big ones, small ones, nasty ones, climbing out of every nook and cranny!

The poisonous pests lay eggs in their human victims, so they can emerge from the corpse, en masse, for maximum “ick” factor.

Kaleb’s flat is in the remarkable Picasso Arenas, near Paris, designed by architect Manuel Núñez Yanowsky, which makes for an artfully labyrinthine backdrop for the anxious apartment dwellers trapped between advancing arachnids and brutal, unsympathetic cops trying to contain the threat.

My main beef with Infested is that the spiders themselves are rather lacking in character. Once ensconced in the building, they aren’t especially aggressive, though they do erupt in an impressive array of shapes and sizes.

When I saw Arachnaphobia (1990) in the theater, the audience was so rapt that we were continually brushing our clothes due to imagined, unseen invaders.

Perhaps it was the smaller screen, but the uncanny feeling of being trapped in a web never really materialized in Infested, though not for a lack of effort by Vanicek and a likable cast that spends most of its screen time cowering in dark corners.

This is where the lion’s share of the character development takes place. Old friends confessing their various misdeeds and misunderstandings, diminishing the sense of urgency necessary to sustain tension or terror.

It’s a pretty good movie, just not all that scary. Let’s see if the Arachnophobia reboot can do any better.

You’ll Never Find Me (2023)

Welcome to a dark night of the soul. Even bad people have them.

In some nameless Australian trailer park, Patrick (Brendan Rock) sits in his living room drinking whiskey. Outside, there is thunder and lightning, just like the night Frankenstein’s creature woke up.

Patrick is alone, but not for long.

A wayward woman (Jordan Cowan), lost in the storm and soaked to the skin, pounds on his door seeking a telephone.

“You’ve knocked on the wrong door,” Patrick tells the shoeless visitor.

Of course, things are not that simple. The wrong door depends on who’s standing where.

You’ll Never Find Me, written and co-directed by Australian newcomer Indianna Bell, is an intricately constructed two-person play, featuring unexpected shifts in the power dynamic taking place over the course of a dark and stormy evening.

It’s Patrick’s house, and he’s obviously a formidable man who prefers solitude. A drenched woman with no shoes can’t possibly be a threat.

So why is he uneasy?

Patrick explains to her that feral kids living in the park routinely beat on his door and run away. Even at two in the morning during a violent storm?

That’s enough to drive anyone mad.

Gradually, Patrick warms up to his guest and promises to help her, but he’s also clearly suspicious about her point of origin. She claims she fells asleep at the beach.

“The beach?” Patrick wonders aloud, as if he’d never heard the word.

Viewers are left to puzzle and ponder the scant information provided by these mysterious players, as both sides continue to distract and interrogate the other while passing the time with a few hands of cards.

We can tell from the outset that Patrick is a (deservedly) haunted man, and as the tension in the trailer escalates, a very big decision about his future—the same one faced by Hamlet—becomes an unbearable burden.

With its single set, minimal action, and tiny, terrific cast, You’ll Never Find Me is a harrowing and claustrophobic watch, with revolving doors of trust and deception leading to the ultimate question: To be or not to be.

Original, highly rewarding, and vigorously recommended.

I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)

Has it really been 27 years since that summer when everyone knew what we did?

Type O Negative’s gloomy cover of Seals & Crofts’ “Summer Breeze” playing over the opening credits should have tipped me off.

There’s angst in the air, probably from Y2K, just over the horizon.

We’ve got major marquee value here. I Know What You Did Last Summer has a formerly fresh cast to die for, led by Sarah Michelle Gellar as Helen Shivers, a small-town beauty queen being chased by a vengeful fisherman decked out in foul weather gear.

Along for the ride is her angry douche boyfriend, Barry Cox (Ryan Phillippe), the group’s moral compass, Julie James (Jennifer Love-Hewitt), and Julie’s working-class beau, Ray Bronson (Freddie Prinze, Jr).

Best-looking cast ever assembled? No dogs in that bunch.

On a fateful Fourth of July evening, the four most attractive graduating teens in a North Carolina fishing community accidentally run over a pedestrian on their way home from a make-out sesh at the beach.

The formerly close-knit quartet quickly comes apart at the seams. They decide to ditch the stiff in the Atlantic Ocean, and seal their secret by vowing never to speak of this unfortunate incident again.

We skip ahead one year to find out that our pretty protagonists are suffering the effects of collective guilt as their lofty ambitions have fizzled out.

Instead of heading off to New York to become a star, Helen is stuck in town working at her family’s bridal shop. You know, in the fishing village.

Julie, the brain, is bombing out of college, and rich kid Barry is holed up at his parents’ house drinking and brooding. Ray is on a boat.

Then Julie gets a note with the title of the movie in it, and the band gets back together!

The script by Kevin Williamson (Scream) is played with a straight face, so anyone expecting witty insights into horror movie tropes, are simply left with a bunch of tropes to sort through.

The plot proffers suspects aplenty, red herrings, and a few surprises, but it’s all pretty standard cat-and-mouse revenge stuff that unfolds at a leisurely pace.

The kills, courtesy of a maniac mariner armed with a gaff hook, are nothing special, and the eventual unmasking contains zero drama.

Tack on a WTF ending and cue the music.

Most of the “entertainment” value derived from IKWYDLS comes from screen time spent with the spirited ensemble, but Gellar, Phillippe, and company aren’t given much to work with.

The principal characters are rough sketches from better movies, and our comely cast is mostly reduced to fleeing and fretting.

There’s something fundamentally wrong with seeing TV’s Buffy Summers afraid of some swab in a raincoat, and eventually being snuffed out in cursory fashion.

I get it, this is a different character, but even so…

Apparently there were sequels and a remake. I can’t imagine why.

The Changeling (1980)

George C. Scott in an understated role as a classical composer bedeviled by spooks in Seattle? It’s true!

I reviewed The Changeling upon its release for my high school newspaper, wherein I declared it “really scary.”

More than 40 years later, I am revising my opinion. Sometimes “scary” doesn’t age well. But then, neither do I.

Ivory tickler John Russell (GCS) is a recent widower, having lost wife and daughter in a wintery road accident. He takes a teaching job at a small college in Washington state to hopefully get his head together and start composing again.

Instead, the massive mansion generously rented to him by Claire Norman (Trish Van Devere, his real-life wife) from the local historical society, comes with a ghost in the attic that wastes no time banging around upstairs, depriving the maestro of much-needed rest.

A seance arranged by Claire with a psychic couple confirms the presence of a restless child murdered in the house, and it becomes Russell’s mission to bring metaphysical justice to the situation.

Director Peter Hyams (The Relic, Time Cop), a thoroughly capable and professional filmmaker, does a thoroughly capable and professional job on The Changeling.

The problem isn’t him, it’s me.

I suppose a scene in which a possessed antique wheelchair chases Claire around the upper floors of the mansion was sufficient to make teenaged me go, “eek!”

Since then, I’ve logged thousands of hours of community service watching ghosts, ghouls, creatures, cruel killers, and assorted hell-spawn ravaging their way through humanity.

The Changeling, even with its star cast and engaging mystery, comes off as quaint and dated. Weak tea and dry toast.

It’s not simply an age thing. A masterpiece of atmosphere such as Robert Wise’s The Haunting (1963) requires nothing more than sound and camera movement to convince us that the supernatural world is all around us.

The Great Scott, who does not bellow, growl, or bloviate, is convincing as Russell, a (literally) haunted man vulnerable/receptive to unseen forces, due to the fresh tragedy in his life.

Though Hyams, Scott, et al, give it the old college try, their collective efforts fail to generate any genuine shock wattage in the 21st century.