I’m going to make a bold prediction that Dark Harvest becomes a Halloween movie-night staple.
Alternately luminous and vicious, Dark Harvest is a captivating adaptation of Norman Partridge’s 2006 novel about a cursed small town that must destroy a local monster every time the calendar hits October 31.
In a seasonal swash of ultra violence, the legendary Sawtooth Jack, a pumpkin-headed demon, rises from the cornfield and is hunted by a posse of hungry high school boys. Jack must be killed before the church bells chime midnight, or the community will be plagued by storms and misfortune for an entire year.
It’s a tradition, you understand.
At harvest time, the boys from the local senior class are locked up for three days without food so they’re properly motivated to bring down Sawtooth Jack, a frightening and deadly foe that is nonetheless loaded with candy.
Director David Slade and writer Michael Gilio conjure magic, madness, and terror in a coming-of-age tale that pounces on the viewer like a midnight collaboration between Ray Bradbury (luminous) and Joe Lansdale (vicious)—with a bit of Hunger Games thrown in after some focus-group input.
Editor’s Note: The kids attend Bradbury High School.
Dark Harvest could have used more exposition and context, but the fevered sepia-toned sights of raving teenagers versus an uncanny enemy, is first-rate cinematic mayhem that actually does justice to its literary origins.
Make it a welcome addition to your annual festival of fright films, m’kay?
The Tank fails to capitalize on a perfectly serviceable premise reminiscent of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Shuttered Room, in which a financially strapped family inherits a long-abandoned property on the Oregon coast. (Actually filmed in New Zealand!)
Conveniently set in the 1970s (no cellphones, duh), The Tank dutifully introduces us to Ben (Matt Whelan) and his wife Jules (Luciane Buchanan), a young couple eking out a living as co-owners of a pet shop.
One day a lawyer arrives with a mysterious deed to a mysterious house that Ben’s mysterious mother (a madwoman) had in her possession, and without further prompting, Ben and Jules pack up their daughter Reia (Zara Nausbaum) and the family dog (who doesn’t die) and split for the new beach house.
Writer-director Scott Walker does an okay job of placing his protagonists in a suitably eerie environment, but there isn’t much going on for the first hour of the film, and frankly it’s not worth the time investment spent waiting for a little action.
What follows are approximately 46 scenes of Ben and Jules wandering about their property in the dark with only lanterns to the light the way, and they mostly add up to zilch. All manner of growls, grunts, and groans are investigated but nothing turns up and everyone goes back to sleep.
Finally, some flesh-eating salamanders materialize in the water tank beneath the house and make their presence known by mauling a couple of secondary characters.
The salamanders have no eyes, so that’s a bit creepy.
Where did they come from? Are they monsters? Did they kill Ben’s father and sister? Most of these mysterious queries remain unanswered, so be prepared for the bitter taste of disappointment upon conclusion of The Tank, because it will not inspire much joy—other than the dog’s survival.
Eleven years after Joe Dante and John Sayles delivered one of the best giant critter movies ever, the not-as-good (but not bad!) sequel, Alligator 2: The Mutation shows up.
It lacks the satirical bite of its predecessor, but the plot is a carbon copy of Alligator, with a smattering of Jaws, once again pitting a wise-cracking cop against a reptilian nightmare lurking in the city sewer system.
Speaking of cities, A2 is filmed in Echo Park dressed up to look like a small town where everyone knows each other. Here, local Latino families are threatened by an evil developer (Steve Railsback) with a lot of toxic waste to unload.
David Hodges (Joseph Bologna) is the detective in charge of the mutilated bodies that start piling up, and he’s beset on all sides by difficult choices, not made any easier by the fact that his scientist wife Christine (Dee Wallace Stone) wants him to quit smoking for his birthday.
Taking another page from the original movie, Vinnie Brown (Railsback), the black-hearted villain of our story, hires comic-relief hunters, led by Hawk Hawkins (Richard Lynch, in a scene-chewing special) as a Cajun gator-getter flanked by a brood of gun-toting rednecks.
Good old Major Healy, Bill Daily, is on hand as the spineless mayor, and veteran faces like Wallace, Brock Peters, and Kane Hodder add some seasoning to the soup.
It’s a fun flick, but Alligator 2: The Mutation can’t duplicate the depth and daring of the first film, which is what happens when you replace director Joe Dante with Jon Hess, and screenwriter John Sayles with Curt Allen.
The practical effects depicting gore and gator mayhem aren’t nearly as good as the first movie, released a decade earlier. Fluctuating gator size doesn’t help. Come on people! Keep up with technology!
In the final reckoning, it checks a bunch of boxes, and you’ll have a decent time chuckling at all the ridiculous hair-dos and don’ts, and occasional cheese-metal anthems.
Hey, we’ve got a package on the porch! Were you expecting scary shit from South Korea?
Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum is an international entry in the found-footage genre, directed by Jung Bum-shik, and it follows a team of horror vloggers live-streaming from an abandoned insane asylum with a sinister reputation.
Based on a real location that CNN Travel dubbed “One of the 7 Freakiest Places on the Planet,” it’s rumored that the former director of Gonjiam Asylum killed all of her patients and then hung herself.
Team captain Ha-joon (Wi Ha-joon) sets up a video control room outside the asylum while his camera-toting crew of three men and three women explore the premises, agreeing to meet up outside the mysterious Room 402, that has never been opened.
Ha-joon hopes that by securing one million views, he and his team will receive a ton of advertising revenue and enjoy the fame and fortune of being paranormal VIPs.
Needless to say, there is no happy ending in the offing. Gonjiam is gorged with ghosts apparently still in thrall to the former director, an evil woman who loves nothing more than a friendly game of ping pong.
Director Jung Bum-shik nurtures tension like a mad nanny and reveals plot twists with precision timing for maximum impact. The imperiled explorers manage to be distinctive without being a bunch of cliches, and the chaotic camera work is handled with extreme dexterity.
The breakdown of the group dynamic is inevitable in Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum. No state-of-the-art gadgetry or high-tech surveillance gear can protect the mind from fear once it’s taken hold.
And if you happen to be in one of CNN’s Freakiest Places on the Planet, it can be a lethal combination. Recommended!
Kristen Stewart tries to escape from the bottom of the ocean (seven miles down!) in Underwater, a movie that looks and sounds a bit like Alien, but isn’t nearly as good.
Kudos to director William Eubank for getting things off to a hot start with an earthquake that cripples a deepwater drilling operation in the Mariannes Trench.
This handy disaster introduces us to Norah Price (K-Stew), a plucky technician with a strong survival instinct. Norah and a handful of crew members (including Vincent Cassell as the captain), begin a long, arduous quest to reach another part of the failing facility in their pressure suits.
To complicate matters, there are also chittering, tentacled sea creatures, led by a Cthulhu-esque Big Daddy, making passage exceedingly difficult for the stranded aquanauts.
Despite achieving some tight claustrophobic moments, and devoting a generous block of screen-time to Norah strolling about the wreckage in her knickers, Underwater never really rises to the occasion, settling for stock characters in danger from an unknown species and unstable tectonics.
While there is some attempt to add “heart” to the narrative by having Norah dutifully collect mementos from her fallen comrades in order to have something for their families, it reads trite and maudlin.
Without giving away all the particulars of the ending, watching Norah fight so valiantly on behalf of her corporate overlords in an environment they shouldn’t have violated in the first place, leaves a bad aftertaste.
As for the unknown species, Norah wisely obliterates it.
“What a bunch of colonialist, slash and burn bullshit,” my wife complained during the credits. “Yes, by all means, let’s nuke the ocean.”
Leave this one in Davy Jones Locker next to DeepStar Six.
If you’re in the market for a pretty good werewolf movie, Howl should do the trick.
It’s an understated thriller, low budget, definitely second billing on a double feature, but effective, efficient storytelling with proper levels of suspense, blood, and carnage.
A British passenger train chugging through the forest is waylaid by an obstruction on the tracks. Joe (Ed Speelers), a fed-up conductor responsible for the safety and welfare of less than a dozen riders, is tasked with finding out what went wrong.
From the looks of things, plenty.
The engineer is missing and there seems to be a large stag tangled in the train’s undercarriage. It’s a full moon and howling can be heard moving closer to the crippled choo-choo.
Most of Howl takes place on the train, where disgruntled passengers ignore Joe’s safety protocols, much to their detriment. Alliances form and crumble as the beast(s) seek to gain entrance and have a quick bite.
Horror Survival Pro Tip: Join forces. There are safety in numbers, a theorem proven correct as the trapped train commuters brutally gang stomp a werewolf into tomato sauce.
As is usually the case, when the group fragments under pressure the slaughter begins in earnest. Conductor Joe does his employers proud, trying till the very end to save lives, but the lad is in over his head.
Directed by Paul Hyett and written by Mark Huckerby and Nick Ostler, Howl is played absolutely straight. There are no subtle genre references, no in-jokes, nothing of the sort.
It’s a train under attack by werewolves! A story as old as time. There’s even a romantic subplot. All aboard!
Funny, I thought with a title like Stoker Hills, that there might be vampires in the vicinity.
Nope, not even a nibble, though blood is drained if you pay attention. I’m not advising you to do so.
Three students enrolled in Professor Tony Todd’s community college film class get themselves kidnapped while working on a zombie movie, and must escape the clutches of a fiendish killer in an underground labyrinth.
Ryan (David Gridley), Jake (William Bedford-Hill), and Erica (Steffani Brass) set out with the noblest intentions to create a cinematic hybrid of “The Walking Dead and Pretty Woman.”
Shooting B-roll of a trolling Erica decked out in hooker garb goes south when she gets snatched by a goon in a creepy car. The dufus bros take off in hot pursuit, eventually leading to a secret trailer in the woods, where they too are set upon and abducted.
The camera is found by a fireman and turned over to the cops.
What looks to be a promising setup is soon squandered, as director Benjamin Louis and scenarist Jonah Kuehner unwisely shift gears into the police investigation that follows their disappearance.
We are summarily introduced to a pair of plodding detectives (Eric Etabari and William Lee Scott, the former inexplicably garbed like he’s auditioning for Guys & Dolls) who manage to grind narrative momentum to a screeching halt.
We’re handed scene after scene of these two dull dicks mulling over the found footage for clues, occasionally cutting back to the tied-up victims trying laboriously to escape their shackles, as if to remind us that there’s still a plot that needs resolving here.
The storyline twists and rebounds with their ponderous investigative revelations, including a serial killer with a pig heart (Jason Sweat) in need of fresh blood. The outré details don’t add up to much of anything, until the very last scene.
At that point, you will have the privilege of deciding if Stoker Hills is a clever little film with a “Gotcha” ending, or a low-budget time-waster with the lamest finale since, “Gosh, what a crazy dream!”
It’s an awesome responsibility when you think about it.
Horror Romance. Seems simple enough, but there are thousands of things that can go wrong, and usually do.
Absence of chemistry between the leads; indulgent editing, inane dialogue, and indifferent art direction, to name a few usual suspects.
Director Luca Guadagnino—along with screenwriter David Kajganich, and cinematographer Arseni Khachaturan—makes magic happen on all fronts in Bones and All, an absorbing and tragic love story, based on a YA novel by Camille DeAngelis.
The moods here shift like unstable weather. We’re following a narrative that’s by turns gruesome, seductive, and visually intoxicating, even when the protagonists are merely rambling down the road, which happens a fair amount during the slow-burning, 2-hour running time.
Or when they’re eating people.
Yes, we are talking about young cannibals in love, but don’t have a cow, man. Weathering the outré scenes is a small price to pay for a unique experience.
As for the subject matter, cannibalism fits snugly into the metaphor drawer under Dark Afflictions.
To say that Maren Yearly (Taylor Russell) is a little different than the other girls at her high school, would be a vicious understatement.
While playing slap and tickle with friends at a slumber party, Maren, the new girl, mistakenly bites down on some finger food, forcing she and her nervous daddy (Andre Holland) to quickly relocate—again.
Soon after, Maren awakens to find Pops has abandoned her, leaving behind a cassette tape he made to help her understand her “condition.”
With little cash and no other options, Maren heads to Minnesota in search of her mother’s relatives and hopefully a sense of her own identity.
During her journey she meets Sully (Mark Rylance), a seemingly benign drifter who identifies her as a fellow “eater,” a small cabal of carnivores that strongly prefer human hocks to anything raised on the farm.
Sully, a smiling and helpful ghoul who feeds opportunistically, is a recurring nightmare for Maren, made flesh and bloody by Rylance’s riveting portrayal.
The next “eater” she encounters is Lee (Timothee Chalamet), a wiry skate dude with a lousy dye job driving a stolen blue pickup. This one sticks, and they drive off together like Thelma and Louise on a second date.
Luca Guadagnino makes bold style and story choices throughout Bones and All, and his judgment is razor-sharp. He grants the camera enough room to shape heartbreaking tableaux of faded beauty amidst a backdrop of rural American poverty.
Like Steinbeck characters, somehow retaining their humanity in the face of crushing circumstances, Maren and Lee are devoted and determined to carve out a bloody little life for themselves, no matter the price.
While they bear some resemblance to other fugitive movie couples (Sailor and Lula in Wild At Heart, Caleb and Mae in Near Dark, Kit and Holly in Badlands), these kids are a different breed.
Hunger is present in every word and action. It’s a black current that soaks into the fabric of a strikingly gorgeous film, and the actors, especially Taylor Russell, handle that internal struggle with amazing grace.
My wife (former Theater major, I’ll have you know!) remarked that Russell is flawless, and gives one of the most naturalistic performances she’s seen in recent years.
All that’s based on a single viewing. There will be more to follow.
Bones and All is an unexpected trunk of perilous wonders, with loneliness and loss lurking among shiner coins such as love and freedom.
It’s an emotional risk to sort it all out, but worth taking if we want to get better.
I hate waking up in a cornfield with no memory of getting there. So, right away, I was a little reluctant to proceed with Escape the Field, a succinctly titled puzzler from English filmmaker Emerson Moore.
Six people regain consciousness amongst an endless jungle of corn. They’re each equipped with a single item (lantern, matches, water, knife, etc), and together must reason their way out of ear shot.
The field is loaded with booby traps, and there is a killer shrewdly disguised as corn, lurking about and making life miserable for everyone.
Sam (Jordan Clare Robbins), who is clearly the brains of this bunch, quickly devours clues and discovers an evolving map that presumably leads to a less starchy environment.
Joining Sam on her doomed patrol, is Ryan (Shane West, in the Adam Baldwin role), a seething, guilt-ridded soldier; Tyler (Theo Rossi, in the Robert Beltran role), a smiling divorced father who develops a crush on Sam, and Cameron (Tahirah Sharif), an emotionally unstable British intelligence agent.
There are two other people in their little posse, but they don’t do anything except die.
After dodging Corn Man and and assorted deadly pitfalls, Sam begins to see a pattern. Someone is obviously watching their progress through the deadly gauntlet.
But who? And what do they want?
Don’t hold your breath waiting for answers. As more than one person remarks during Escape the Field, “there’s no way out.”
This becomes apparent at around the 30-minute mark, leaving another 58 minutes of futile floundering in the field.
Writer-director Emerson Moore surely should have known that we’d get fed up with all this friggin’ corn.
In the case of Escape the Field, I would stick with the old horror movie adage, “Steer clear of the Moore.”
From its Read Window voyeurism to Julia’s (Maika Monroe) resemblance to classic Hitchcock blonde Tippi Hedren, Watcher is a first-rate homage to the 20th century’s finest suspense filmmaker.
Best of all, it’s exquisitely crafted by writer-director Chloe Okuno, who orchestrates grinding fear and dread for a serial killer’s potential victim, a woman who knows too much in a country where she doesn’t speak the language.
Julia and her husband Francis (Karl Glusman) have just moved to Bucharest for his work. Julia, a one-time actress, is left to entertain herself in their new apartment for long periods of time while Francis wheels and deals.
Right off the bat, Julia is unnerved by a silhouette in a window across the street, a figure that seems to be fixated in her direction. In what becomes a pattern, she tries to tell Francis about the suspicious person, only to have hubby minimize her fears.
Meanwhile, women alone in their apartments are turning up headless. Yeah, thanks for your concern, Francis! Probably nothing to worry about.
There isn’t an ounce of flab on Watcher. Dialogue is minimal. Each frame is a precision brick in a wall of menace that threatens to fall on Julia at any moment. Precarious angles of endless invention are used to create a perpetual male gaze on Julia, a person seen, but not heard, due to a language (and gender) barrier.
Maika Monroe (It Follows, The Guest) continues to bloom, transcending the genre’s Final Girl status and emerging as a reluctant action hero, correctly channeling frustration and rage into not only self-preservation, but victory.
Make no mistake: in the hands of a lesser actress this film would not have achieved such thrilling peaks. As the unwilling object of a madman’s desire, Monroe is charismatic, capable, and committed to each character moment, as only someone fighting for their life can be.
Julia’s determination to find her tormentor and destroy her victimhood provides serious octane in Watcher, a sleek thriller that both embraces the Hitchcock tradition, and flips the camera back onto the audience (and Hitchcock), as if to ask, “What are you looking at?”
Definitely a Top Ten film of 2022. See it straight away.
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