You think you know who your friends are? Would you bet your life on it?
Certainly the most frightening aspect of director Halina Reijn’s Bodies, Bodies, Bodies is that every relationship in a movie about lifelong friends under pressure is so damn fragile.
Or in some cases, nonexistent.
Sophie (Amandla Stenberg) is bringing her new girlfriend Bee (Maria Bakalova) to a magnificent mansion owned by the family of her best friend, Dave (Pete Davidson).
So there’s a hurricane brewing and a bunch of Richie Rich kids have the run of a big house. What could go wrong?
Everything!
While playing a game of Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, in which someone “kills” people in the dark, and the remaining players have to figure out whodunnit, Dave the host turns up with his throat cut.
There are seven remaining party guests—including one who isn’t present for most of the movie—and all it takes is one grisly corpse and abundant cocaine for a bunch of 20-somethings to turn on each other like rabid rats.
Outside a storm is raging. Inside, there are accusations, confessions, and pleas for mercy, followed by the thunk of more bodies hitting the floor.
The zeal with which these “friends” tear into each other could be blamed on the nose candy, but inevitably comes back around to the most obvious conclusion. Nobody knows anybody. Not that well.
If you’re just too ADD for Agatha Christie, Bodies, Bodies, Bodies should keep you guessing to the end, or at least till something shinier comes along.
I have to admire the moxie of writer-director Brendan Rudnicki—aka, President and CEO of DBS Films—who doesn’t let little things like money get in the way of quick-hitting horror films like Forest of Death.
Weighing in at a lean 75 minutes, Rudnicki wastes no time with story arc, motivation, or any of that other fancy pants nonsense. It’s two basic-cable couples playing drinking games in the woods with a skinwalker/shapeshifter haunting the vicinity.
Despite a predictable premise and a shortage of dramatic talent, there are moments in Forest of Death where the total is greater than the sum of its cheapo parts, and Rudnicki makes his crude puppet show dance and caper.
Make no mistake, this movie doesn’t dawdle, placing the protagonists in danger within 10 minutes of the opening credits. Even so, Rudnicki feels confident enough to include two cheerful, upbeat musical interludes of his nondescript characters enjoying a few rousing rounds of gin rummy.
There is very little creature action, since the evil spirit can assume any form, which is another handy budget-saving device employed by the resourceful Rudnicki.
Once the skinwalker has infiltrated the cabin, it’s only a matter of time before the dominos start falling, and friends turn on each other. The question each viewer must answer for themselves is how much nutritional value can be derived from such a thoroughly chewed bone?
When there’s no meat, you make soup. Forest of Death is strictly warmed-over leftovers.
I was passably entertained, but no one will be blown away by loads of fresh ideas. As a resumé builder for Brendan Rudnicki, though, it’s a statement of purpose.
Folklorist Alvin Schwartz is the author of the source material for Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, but in the fertile hands of director Andre Ovredal (Trollhunter) and producer Guillermo del Toro, these words not only spring to life, they chase us down a long dark hallway.
With the 1968 presidential election of Richard Nixon serving as an ominous backdrop, we are invited into the picturesque community of Mill Valley, Pennsylvania, where Halloween is in full swing.
Stella (Zoe Margaret Colletti), a fan of horror movies and a burgeoning writer, is putting the finishing touches on her witch costume in preparation for an evening out with Auggie (Gabriel Rush), and Chuck (Austin Zajur), her two doofus friends.
In short order, they manage to piss off Tommy Milner (Austin Abrams), the town bully, and he and his goon buddies chase the luckless teens into a drive-in showing Night of the Living Dead. There, they take refuge in a car belonging to Ramon (Michael Garza), a stranger in town, who coincidentally is also on the run.
With Ramon in tow, Stella and her friends decide to explore the Bellows Mansion, the local haunted house of mystery, and in doing so, release the spirit of Sarah Bellows, a raging ghost bent on revenge.
While the connecting narrative of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is an increasingly familiar page torn from Ray Bradbury, Stephen King, Stranger Things, etc, the monsters conceived by del Toro and Ovredal bring the zing to this production.
The Fat Lady, Harold the Scarecrow, the Jangly Man, and the Big Toe Zombie are the stuff of newer, fresher nightmares, elbowing aside worn-out boogeyman templates that neither frighten nor satisfy.
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark also ends in such a way that a second film is practically required so Stella can rescue Auggie and Chuck. I only hope that the sequel is likewise handled by del Toro and Overdal, who are perfectly suited to the task.
In case my review is too ambiguous, I heartily recommend Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, now and in the future.
If you’re a real horror fan, you know it’s true. Significant Other is just another case study in the facts of life.
Written and directed by Dan Berk and Robert Olson, the movie also offers relationship advice on how not to upset your boyfriend when he’s been body snatched by an alien scout checking out Earth as a possible invasion site.
Harry (Jake Lacy) convinces his anxiety ridden girlfriend Ruth (Maika Monroe) to go on a camping and hiking weekend. The communication between Harry, a hearty, upbeat outdoorsman, and his dour partner is not good.
For the first quarter of the movie, Harry ignores and dismisses every word from Ruth, which leads to a really awkward marriage proposal that puts a damper on the campers.
Ruth storms off to be alone. Harry goes for a walk to clear his head. Both make discoveries of the Third Kind, and when they meet up again, they’re not the same people.
Harry plays host to an alien consciousness, and is as surprised as anyone that his feelings for Ruth are complicating his mission.
Significant Other almost ventures into romantic comedy territory, because this relationship turns toxic in a big way, leading to a modest blood bath. Harry falls off a cliff, gets eaten by a shark, and has his head smashed into pudding, but he’s harder to kill than a cockroach.
Finally, Ruth ends up in Harry’s shoes and seemingly outwits the cosmic conqueror, making her getaway. It’s a small victory, as it turns out, because like shitty boyfriends, there are always plenty of invaders to go around.
I’d heard Super Dark Times compared to Stand By Me, but it reminds me more of a much grimmer movie that came out the same year (1986), Tim Hunter’s River’s Edge.
Known primarily as a launching pad for a young Keanu Reeves, it also came with barking mad performances from Dennis Hopper and Crispin Glover.
All three movies speak volumes about adolescent friendships put under stress by the presence of a dead body.
The resemblance to Stand By Me seems deliberate. At first glance, Super Dark Times appears to take place in one of those Stephen King-like clouds of sunny nostalgia based some time in the 1990s.
Boys on their bicycles, clunky portable phones with Walkie Talkie antennas, and a TV appearance by Bill Clinton anchor us firmly in the appropriate decade, much like Donnie Darko’s sister declaring her intent to vote for Michael Dukakis.
Zach (Owen Campbell) and Josh (Charlie Tahan) are high school best buds whiling away their virgin years in a small rural town that looks Norman Rockwell on the surface, with a noticeable David Lynch underbelly.
Their lives are mostly innocent fun punctuated with declarations of impending boy horniness until a terrible mishap claims the life of Daryl (Max Talisman), a pain-in-the-ass acquaintance whom no one wanted to hang out with in the first place.
Everyone agrees it was an accident that led to Daryl’s bleeding to death, and the decision is quickly made to bury his stupid body and play dumb.
Indeed, it’s the day-to-day mundanity of the average teen that director Ken Phillips and writers Luke Piotrowski and Ben Collins, get exactly right, to the point where we actually care about Zach’s budding relationship with dream girl Allison (Elizabeth Cappucino).
However, this isn’t a John Hughes film, either. Zach cannot be redeemed by love and Josh loses his way entirely.
Once the closest of friends, Zach and Josh now view each other with increasing suspicion, that builds fiendishly low and slow.
Josh becomes angry and distant while Zach can’t sleep due to vivid nightmares about their dark deed.
The inability of friends to trust each other with a hideous secret dooms the relationship and leads to an unexpectedly bloody finale, one that slays any notion of Super Dark Times taking place in a benign Stephen King universe.
More like Dateline with Keith Morrison.
SDT is a superb, riveting thriller as well as a brutally harsh coming-of-age story, with young protagonists that have yet to develop a moral center.
Enthusiastic recommendation from this corner. I ate it up like Junior Mints.
Real estate is always a solid investment—unless you’re in a state where realtors needn’t disclose past tragic events, such as occupation by a sinister cult and lots of subsequent disappearances.
Like I said, a crap shoot.
Such is the case with Marcus (Antoine Harris) and Grace (Shannon Foster), who think they’ve found a perfect parcel of land near Ojai, California to set up a commercial cannabis operation.
To celebrate their new future as ganja growers, the couple invite friends Phillip (Peter Sabri), Dominic (Weston Meredith), and Patricia (Erlinda Navarro), down for a weekend of drinking games and exploring the property.
At first, guest and host alike have trouble sleeping. Patricia in particular is gripped by nightmares of bloodletting and dismemberment.
Meanwhile Phil and Dominic get into a lover’s quarrel, and Dominic storms off to find a signal for his phone. Never to be seen again.
Thanks to a gabby security officer, the group finds out that at least one ex-cult member (with cannibal tendencies) is still running around terrorizing the community.
Unfortunately, this is the kind of red flag that will cause most investors to bail out.
The maniac is a brawny dude, marginally scary, but nothing really paranormal happens until his victims rise from the grave seeking revenge.
Filmed on a micro budget by director Demetrius Navarro, Warnings isn’t a good movie, but it’s good enough if gruesome events taking place in a scenic location float your boat.
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.
Time for another installment of The Babysitter Saga, where we get to know the folks minding our precious offspring, while Mom and Dad sip martinis beneath a romantic moon, in search of dormant passion.
Spoonful of Sugar introduces us to Millicent (Morgan Saylor), an awkward college student hired to keep tabs on Johnny (Danilo Crovetti), a nonverbal autistic boy with a ton of allergies.
Johnny’s mother Rebecca (Kat Foster) is a successful writer married to Jacob (Myko Olivier), a hunky, shirtless carpenter that works from home.
Yes, this is a basic recipe for any number of Cinemax potboilers. Fortunately, director Mercedes Bryce Morgan and writer Leah Saint Marie have bigger fish to fry.
Nothing in the film is what it appears to be—it’s much, much worse, often to the point of absolute lunacy.
Millicent seems a virginal innocent, charged with caring for a seriously damaged child in an astronaut costume, whose parents are at the end of their ropes.
And that’s when Morgan brings her ingredients to a furious boil. Jacob and Millicent explore their animal attraction, even as the latter self-medicates with generous doses of LSD.
Historically (hysterically?), it could be argued that the combination of sex and drugs transforms Millicent into something evil, but the evidence presented indicates she’s already had a thriving career in the field, leaving a discreet stash of bodies in her wake.
It’s a calling she shares with young Johnny.
What ensues is a surreal, nightmarish custody battle, with both parties revealing a heart of darkness.
Millicent and Rebecca square off centerstage in a bloody contest of parenting styles, competing for Jacob, and the love of a mute boy with increasingly special needs of his own.
The outrageous extremes and shocking tableaux favored by Mercedes Bryce Morgan slow cook into a marvelously harrowing stew of taboos that satisfies a craving we didn’t even know we had.
Spoonful of Sugar is potentially dangerous medicine. Please consult your mad doctor before ingesting.
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.
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