The Invitation

Karyn Kusama, 2016

IMDB

2/5

Do you know that feeling when you go to a restaurant and you are totally hungry and eager for some food. You sit down and order your food, only to wait another 1 hour and 20 minutes to actually be served? Well, in a sense that's what this film is like. The table is set early, as a group of friends gather for a dinner party. They haven't seen each other in 2 years. You slowly are served little tiny pieces of backstory. There was a divorce between main character Will (Logan Marshall-Green) and Eden (Tammy Blanchard). You soon find out why, and its important to hold back details here because it's an easy film to spoil. But she has changed to say the least. Will doesn't like this change. Because she appears to be numb, to be drugged up somehow or in some kind of trance. So after the figurative table is set, you are now waiting to see why they are there at this party. And you wait, and then there is some more waiting, and then you wait some more. Finally there is a payoff in this film, but it just comes too late. There is clearly not enough story here to create an elaborate film. There's the Hitchcockian method of skillfully building tension and then releasing it masterfully. Then there's this more elementary method of relying too much on that very tension and then not offering up enough when it is released. When the big revelation comes toward the end, there's not a whole lot of shock. Then the film just becomes gratuitous. Frustrating. None of the characters other than Will are really believable characters. Nobody you would encounter in real life. In any real life situation everyone would have walked out and left after they were forced to watch the awkward cult video. Perhaps its the weak script. Perhaps its the inconsistent casting choices. Marshall Green and Michiel Huisman offer good performances but the rest of the cast is just kind of blah. I think the script and inferior direction is to blame here. But there is one redeeming factor in this film.  There is a detail in the end of the film that is quite clever. Clever enough that you could say that this is one of the rare Bad Movies with Good Endings. 

Green Room

Jeremy Saulnier, 2016

IMDB

3/5

Jeremy Saulnier certainly creates an environment that viewers would not have any interest spending time in in real life. A rural white supremacist rock club where blaring punk rock is played to crowds of aggressive skinheads. But that’s one of the best things about cinema; that it can transport you to places you would otherwise never visit. And he transports you in the company of a group of young punk kids that are struggling to make ends meat, living out of their van. Scraping by, taking any gig willing to pay a meager wage. They find themselves driving into the backwoods of Oregon to take an ambiguous gig given to them by a shady promoter. After their set one of the bandmates forgets a cell phone in the green room. Upon opening the door to the green room, Pat (Anton Yelchin) quickly discovers there is a woman’s dead body on the floor. Realizing that a murder has just taken place, he panics and attempts to call for help. They are soon trapped inside this claustrophobic green room, as the club owner and his aides attempt to cover up the whole situation.

Saulnier carefully plays with stylism and tension in this limited storytelling thriller. Basically the entire film takes place in this rock club, which is a glorified industrial corrugated metal shed in Bigfoot country. Saulnier is committed to his environment his builds; the Neo-Nazi imagery is strewn across every nook and cranny in the building. Stickers, graffiti, Sharpie doodles. The tension sets in from the second they get out of their rinky dink van and are quickly escorted inside the building. What follows is a violent display of a group of rather innocent punk kids trying to escape the worst gig of their short-lived music career. Outside the building, club owner Darcy (Patrick Stewart playing one of the most unexpected roles of his career) attempts to delicately clean up the situation rather than kicking the doors down and massacring them. But you realize that Darcy is totally capable of this. The fact that he doesn’t do this almost makes him more frightening.

The movie ends and you will be happy to leave this horrible universe you spend 95 minutes in. But Saulnier creates some unforgettable images, very much like he did in his last film Blue Ruin. He finds new ways to shed blood. People will probably remember this film as being one of Anton Yelchin’s last projects, as he tragically died in 2016 after the film was released. He was good in this film, although he was guilty of doing something Stewart also did a little too much of, whispering. I don’t know if it was the audio track or just the hardware I was viewing the film on. At times it was so difficult to hear the dialogue. Yelchin was often mumbling to the others. Patrick Stewart spent a lot of time whispering orders to his cohorts, and it was also very difficult to make out what he was saying when he was on the other side of the metal green room door. But the technical complaints aside, this is a film that should be seen. And surprisingly, even with such disturbing imagery, it’s a film that I will want to rewatch sometime soon.

Room

Lenny Abrahamson, 2015

IMDB

4/5

In terms of modern day literary adaptations, Room is certainly pulled from dark subject matter. Told from the perspective of main character / five year old boy Jack (Jacob Tremblay) , in structure it resembles similarly disturbing adaptation “The Lovely Bones” which was adapted to screen by Peter Jackson in 2009. Bones was told by an abducted teenage girl slain by a serial killer. While Bones dives a little deeper into the darkness, Room definitely puts you in an unsettling place. Actually, it immediately puts you in it. The film opens up inside the small shed / tiny prison where mother Ma (Brie Larson) and her little boy are laying in bed. The film doesn't jump into the past, showing you what circumstances led to their captivity. Nope, just right to the shed. It goes on to show you that Ma has created a routine for him, clearly trying to maintain some kind of stability while housed in such a small space under horrific circumstances. Not only does it show her dedication as a parent but it shows her patience as well. When Jack erupts into small tantrums, she has no choice but to stay close to him and take a deep breath and try to let it go. Tough work as any parent realizes. Walking away, leaving the room (or "Room" as they call it) is not an option. An early success in the film is how quickly you become invested in their characters. Larson is no stranger to playing a troubled female lead, as she did remarkably in Short Term 12. Larsen and Tremblay are really the shining performances of the film, easily outshining veterans Joan Allen and William H Macy. Macy's talents don't really feel used properly in the film. He just sort of passes through quickly, and sort of fades away insipidly.

Room is a very different movie from Abrahamson's work last year in Frank. Although he does have a way of blending black comedy elements into a dark drama as he does in both pictures. Room is really a heart-wrenching story, uncomfortably tense at times, about a mother and her son forced to try and endure unimaginable circumstances. It's a provocative & unique drama, certain to make some kind of impression on you. 

Circle

Aaron Hann / Mario Miscione, 2015

IMDB

3/5

There a handful of films (Buried, The Man from Earth, 12 Angry Men, Pontypool, Rear Window and a lot of Hitchcock's work for that matter) that take place in a single location. With a limited setting, you need to have a good script powering the narrative. Because you are going to be stuck with these characters for 90 minutes or so, they NEED to be interesting.

Circle takes place in a single room. A bunch of strangers awaken from an mysterious daze and find themselves placed upon red circles like human board game pieces. They realize quite quickly that they are part of an odd social experiment. When one of them steps off of the red circle that they stand on, they die. Not long after they realize that it's not the only way to die in the circle room. Seemingly at random, the ominous eye at the center of the room zaps an innocent victim. But then they determine it's not random. Not only is it not random, they are actually in control of who gets exterminated. What transpires is a dark social experiment where everyone in the room makes a stand for their life, and also has to play executioner to the people standing around them. What starts off as superficial judging turns into moral examinations. The numbers dwindle down and the experiment turns into pure Survivor-esque strategy. It's interesting that you really don't spend a whole lot of time with the poor people in the room. But because of their dilemma, you are forced to learn a lot about them rapidly. Like they are making a stand for their lives, and because of that they reveal themselves much faster than they would over a cup of coffee where they have all of the time in the world. The end result is a really inventive and unique movie, one that feels like an indie hybrid of Saw, the aforementioned 12 Angry Men and the not-often-mentioned Cube.

Creep

Patrick Brice, 2015

IMDB

3/5

You realize after watching this film that it's not really scary per se, but just down right creepy. So the title is very suitable. Perhaps what separates the creepiness from pure horror is how realistic the film actually feels. Maybe it's the found footage style that they are working with. Maybe it's the whole responding to an ad on Craigslist story that we constantly read about in the headlines. 

There's something about the lonely guy who doesn't respect boundaries that's almost scarier than an empty eyed cold blooded killer in the woods like Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th. Duplass brings complexity to his character. Even while you are feeling completely uncomfortable in his presence, you feel confusingly sympathetic. Instead of the film falling into predictable twists, it breaks some of the conventions of the found footage style and plays with it. They aren't afraid to experiment with the genre here, and that benefits the film greatly. You are never really sure what depths the film is going to sink to, and you are never really sure what the limits are. It's sure to surprise anyone watching. The Duplass Brothers are out there creating things in film that other people aren't creating. We are living in the peak time for young creative directors to generate stories on small budgets, and they are fortunately taking advantage of their resources. 

Preservation

Christopher Denham, 2015

IMDB

3/5

Denham succeeds with this indie horror/thriller by purposefully not trying to reinvent the wheel. He knows what the film is, and doesn't try to break any new ground. He makes his mark through a very John Carpenter-esque score, and through some really artful camera work. The film is more of an homage to the 80's slasher films with the killer in the woods like Friday the 13th and Evil Dead. The film also largely works because of the acting work by Wrenn Schmidt (Our Idiot Brother), Pablo Schreiber (The Wire, Orange is the New Black) and Aaron Staton (Mad Men).

The first half hour or so of the film is dedicated to introducing the three main characters. Brothers Sean (Schreiber) and Mike (Staton) bring along Mike's wife Wit (Schmidt) on a camping trip. The brothers are clearly veteran campers, with an edge going to Sean because he is a an actual military veteran where he was able to perfect a lot of survival skills. Sean also suffers with PTSD sustained during his tours abroad. Because of this there is an obvious divide between the two brothers, with Mike sort of unsure of Sean's unpredictable actions and mood swings. There's also marital trouble between Mike and Wit. They don't have a really intimate relationship, and Mike is mostly conducting business on his cell-phone. So it's not just three innocent happy-go-lucky people venturing into the woods together. There is tension from the start, some ambiguity as to who the people really are and what we will learn about them when things start heading south. Actually the most pure character from the get-go is probably Sean's loyal and intelligent German Shepherd.

When the film makes it's inevitable shift, things turn from tense to brutal as the three campers are preyed upon by merciless forces. There's something interesting about the true display of who you are as a person when you are put in a situation like this, where you are thrown into the wilderness with nothing but your wits. It's been done before in The Blair Witch Project, where you see humans stripped down to nothing but weepy, desperate shells. Preservation manages to take a stale premise and repackages it with fresh visual elements. That might not be enough to please everyone but it was enough to satisfy me.

Blue Ruin

Jeremy Saulnier, 2014

Can I Stream It?

3/5
When homeless and broken Dwight (Macon Blair) receives news of a convicted killer's release, a killer who had killed people very close to him years before, he decides to take matters into his own hands.

Blue Ruin is a product of the world of crowd-funding, with the production costs funded by a Kickstarter campaign. A very nice looking film, albeit being a dark revenge piece about vigilante justice. Served by a man with nothing to lose. Blair plays that man, soliciting sympathy within minutes of being introduced to his Dwight character. He spends the first few minutes of the film simply gathering things to eat, picking garbage at a neighborhood carnival in coastal Delaware. As soon as he hears the news of Wade Cleland's release, he begins acting out a game-plan that was likely a worse case scenario for Dwight. It almost seems like if Wade was never released, Dwight would continue stumbling through the days like a lifeless zombie. He soon finds a sense of mild purpose, justice for his parents' cold-blooded slaying. What follows is a chain of events that is similar in tone to Jeff Nichol's Shotgun Stories in the sense that it explores family feuding, familial loyalty and unforgiving retribution.

One moderate criticism about the film is the source of anger for protagonist Dwight. His parents were murdered years back. Of course that would be enough to make anyone deeply angry, looking for some form of justice outside of the conventional prison system, which clearly went easy on Wade. But Dwight has basically shut himself off to the world, almost as if when his parents died he gave up on everything without ever attempting to move on with his life (like his sister). Would someone choose this path after their parents were killed? Not that anyone would take their parents' murder mildly, but at some point they would lick their wounds and move on with their life, right? Dwight turns out to be the anti-Bruce Wayne. He doesn’t use the tragedy as a motivator to rid the streets of crime. Instead once the killer is imprisoned he goes into complete isolation, taking a vow of silence. Living out of his car, dumpster diving. He doesn’t actually attempt to execute any reparation until the killer is released from prison early. Perhaps his story would have been more realistic if it were his wife and child that had been killed. The film could have flashed back to the happy moments in his life in his suburban home with the white picket fence, only to be stripped from him after a home invasion gone awry. That being said, the story isn't COMPLETELY unbelievable. It's actually quite the opposite. Just a well-made/complete revenge thriller.

Grand Piano

Eugenio Mira, 2013

Can I Stream It?

3/5

After five years passed since a horrible bout of stage fright, concert pianist Tom Selznick returns for a come-back performance in Chicago. But when he begins playing, he notices a threatening note on his sheet-music warning him that if he makes one mistake he will be killed.

Mira employs the nervous craft of Elijah Wood (and an obvious body double or um, hand double) that we have all become familiar with seeing him with his Frodo Baggins character in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings franchise. That same energy works very well here. Young man with a sort of deer-in-headlights look, with a precise goal to be achieved but faced with adversity. Wood isn't necessarily an actor with a lot of range, but one who can deliver when cast properly (unlike one of the other actors in the film to be mentioned soon). His Tom character shows an immediate sense of inner torment. Trying to overcome his past disaster, he struggles to maintain composure before he even arrives at the concert hall. White-knuckling the plane ride, not because of the fear of flying but the fear of landing in the city where he must perform in six hours. When he does arrive at the hall, his reception is lukewarm at best. The dapper crowd may have come with open-minds, but the stage-hands still have a bad taste in their mouth. Even the local radio station has low expectations. All methods in which you are shown how much of a calamitous embarrassment that last performance was five years before. There is a lot riding on this performance. Besides the obvious chip on the shoulder, he probably also feels obligated to prove his value to wife Emma (Kerry Bishe). With all of the effort involved in actually GETTING to the piano, you would almost think that his work is halfway done. That is, until you realize how complex and demanding the body of work is that he must gruel through.

The camera jumps around from close ups of the cold sweat dripping from Tom's forehead, to the fingers rapidly jumping around the piano keys, to wide shots of the stage from the crowd's perspective (and at times of course, the villain). Besides the obvious black and whites of the piano keys, you see a lot of red in the film, much of which is cleverly used from the curtain fabric. When exploring a massive Concert Hall like the one shown, the curtain itself at times has a disconcerting feel to it. Almost like there can be haunting elements hiding in the folds. Cue the low octaves his finger hits, and then when you realize how sophisticated the work is that Tom is playing you really feel the almost inevitable doom if Tom happens to misstep (again). 

While Wood is a good fit for the Tom Selznick character, the same can't be said about John Cusack with villain Clem. Cusack, who hasn't really had a remarkable performance since 2000's High Fidelity, continues to disappoint on screen. Perhaps because he is typically misused these days? Clem's character could have and should have been more menacing, more threatening, more imposing. But Cusack just doesn't have that in his repertoire. He could provide a much better service to film (not this one) if he continues to play the hopeless romantic sappy guy. Can't fault him for trying to branch out, but he's had many chances to prove himself in the darker roles (Identity, 1408, The Raven) and they continue to be disappointing. There are many actors who could have done a much better job here. It would have been nice to see a Christoph Waltz, Tom Hardy, or a Javier Bardem as Clem. With Cusack, you never really get a sense that he will REALLY pull the trigger. Despite Cusack's deficiencies with the villain character, Grand Piano still largely works due to Mira's handling of it. The mounting tension, engaging story, clean cinematography is enough to keep you interested. Satisfying and clever ending that follows up on an tease from earlier. You'll probably be sitting through the end credits hoping to get some follow-up footage, but you won't get it (sorry). 

Cheap Thrills

E.L. Katz, 2014

Can I Stream It?

4/5

Craig (Pat Healy) is drowning his financial sorrows at a Los Angeles dive bar when he runs into old high school friend Vince (Ethan Embry) who he hasn't seen in five years. The two of them meet Colin (David Koechner) and Violet (Sara Paxton) who are celebrating Violet's birthday. Craig and Vince end up performing various antics for the couple for quick cash in an effort to get out of their desperate financial state.

Back in my bar-hopping days, my friends and I would play a hypothetical game with each other. It was never an official game that would be scheduled for any reason, nor did we ever really give it an official name. It was very loosely called the whats your price game. Someone in the group would provide a shocking activity, something like losing a limb or losing an eye and the conversation would circulate between the group to see what everyone's price was to perform said action. It would generate some short-term provocative discussion, but would never result in anything physically. Years later comes along this film Cheap Thrills, which is probably the closest thing to the whats your price game in film form.

Two surprising elements in this film from the get-go are the casting decisions. You see Ethan Embry in the credits, yet it probably takes you a few minutes to actually realize WHO he is in the film. He's no longer the baby-faced twenty-something from Empire Records. He really looks like he's put some years on that face. He's now the middle-aged slob with the cheap beanie and two-week beard. Then you have David Koechner, who would traditionally be cast in an Adam McKay-led comedy. He has dipped his toes in similarly less-comedic waters (Final Destination 5, Piranha), but this is certainly a different flavor. There's comedy present, but oh boy it's dark. His Colin character is by no means a strictly serious personality, and Koechner's typical persona certainly comes through and really works here. The Colin character is a rich sadist throwing dollar bills at each deplorable stunt. The smug, made-up Violet sits by his side immobile like a mannequin. The deplorable acts get progressively worse as the stakes are raised. Nobody is watching the clock more than Craig, who has a worried wife at home with his baby. Craig figures that the next action will be his last, and then he can finally leave the madhouse that he has been spending the last few hours in, this madhouse that at times reminds you of the firecracker-popping crack-den in Boogie Nights. All that's missing is the Rick Springfield anthem playing in the background, instead here it's some biting Dubstep. And you only spent about twenty minutes in Rahad's den in Boogie Nights. Here, you are not going anywhere that quickly. You probably want to, but there's that next stunt. That next payout. For Craig, that next payout will help him and his family get out of the rut. He will no longer be an embarrassment. For Vince, it's a new beginning. A chance to start over. Who knows, maybe get on the right path so that he can have a wife and kid too. Each passing moment brings along another morally-compromising idea coupled with more diminishing intoxication. The two men may have been old friends but their loyalty is tested, then tested again, and again.

It's a disturbing, drug-induced game show. Almost like the suspenseful offspring of an Irreversible and Compliance (which also featured Pat Healy). A showcase of clouded judgement. Blind faith in absolute strangers. Diametric character unraveling. A downward spiral. Stretched limits. Two different life paths colliding, coming together for one night where the two forces are after the same thing. Brutal. Barbarous. As things continue to go deeper, you sit there wondering how it will end. How CAN it end? You should be compensated for getting through the film not because it's poorly made (it's not) but because it's challenges you in a way most films don't, or can't. At least not within the rating confines of the MPAA. Perhaps it's why Cheap Thrills unrated. Maybe it's better that way. A watered down version of this picture would have fallen into a different category, probably artless gore-porn. Cheap Thrills also deserves credit for it's clever tagline: "What doesn't kill you makes you richer".

Chained

Jennifer Chambers Lynch, 2012


3/5

Lynch directs this torture-horror picture about a serial killer who traps his victims with his taxi cab and brings them to his house to kill them. He uses a boy, son of a past victim, as a slave in his home to help clean up his messes and work on his scrapbook which details his slayings.

Lynch's work is probably the creative equivalent of bringing Eli Roth home on a date to meet her father David. It's not necessarily a bad thing. Just different from a film that her father would make, and of course she is going to be forced to endure countless comparisons from the film community given the impact that David Lynch has had on modern cinema. She has certainly picked up some of the chops, while the film is quite disturbing at times it still maintains an artful quality to it. D'Onofrio disappears into his role as Bob, proving that he can become an even more involved killer than his character in The Cell. His victim, Rabbit (Eamon Farren), maintains a very obvious sympathetic edge throughout the film, as he sits in the run down shack malnourished eating the scraps left behind by Bob. When it comes to the attention to set design, the serial killer's house is so chilling the Fedex guy would be afraid to place a package on the front steps. The visual canvas of the film is laid out using a lot of bleak colors, and when you are in the presence of some light it's usually a circa 1970's lamp providing a disconcerting glow throughout the filthy shack. The windows are boarded up. The basement, which is home to the remains of the many victims, is lit only and ironically by Christmas lights. Night falls, and the glow of fluorescent-lit "Comfort" written on the top of the Taxi Cab provides the same tension you feel when trapped in the house with the monster. Lynch not only plays off of visual cues but also with sound as well. There is a very present bass-driven hum throughout the film, maintaining a sense of impending horror. To sum it all up... it's a film that will appeal to the horror fan, but anyone that's planning a re-watch really needs a psychological evaluation.