A Lonely Place to Die

Julian Gilbey, 2011

IMDB

3/5

Lonely starts off with one of the main characters suspended incredibly high on the face of what seems like an endless cliff over the rough Scottish Highlands. On top of the world, but also other-worldly. The conditions are completely treacherous, unforgiving, unpredictable as we see quite early on in the film. It doesn't take long for the film to feel non-American, in a good way. The group of adventurers drinks whiskey, plays cards, and instead of it being all lovey-dovey between them where everyone is friends and all of the couples pair off and make love, there is some real tension. It feels very organic in that sense. Sometimes when you meet people for the first time, get drinking, you find that you might not like a specific person all of that much. It plays with this, and assuming that you have already discovered the plot of the film and putting you in a situation that you aren't exactly sure who to get behind. 

The film takes a turn away from a Vertical Limit-type film to an action thriller / kidnapping / human trafficking film and it's done quite effectively. When you are introduced to the villains, you are introduced to two cold-blooded killers. An emptiness in their eyes that's completely unnerving. The two actors, Sean Harris and Stephen McCole, resemble a murderous version of Vice founder Shane Smith and a psycho Simon Pegg. The story makes sudden turns and morphs into different genre forms. Great camera work, good acting, and good direction keep you engaged through the 99 minute running time. Certainly a story of vulnerable people in the crosshairs of people who are VERY familiar with the terrain. Sort of like Deliverance in that sense. Sort of like Deliverance meets Cliffhanger, something along those lines. Maybe it's the use of lesser known actors. Maybe it's using the intimidating Scottish Highlands as the film's backdrop. But so much of the film feels unique and interesting. The nighttime parade sequence added a creepy element to the already tense finale of the film.

Always a good idea to spend a little time searching through Netflix, especially through some of the foreign titles. Every now and then you will find a lesser known title like this one that is worth the watch. 

Under the Skin

Jonathan Glazer, 2014

Can I Stream It?

4/5

Set in Scotland, a shape-shifting alien creature is secretly killing young men in an effort to feed a mysterious source. Soon the carefully maintained routine is disrupted when the seductress begins to gain an awareness, suddenly seeing the human race as something more than just lustful meat.

Under the Skin has a lingering quality to it, a quality existent in Glazer's past film Sexy Beast. But while Sexy Beast was simply rooted in great performances, this picture's lingering qualities are more obvious, more impacting, more elaborate. More intriguing. Glazer's cold black predatory piece plays out like a David Lynch created hybrid of Stephen King's Sleepwalkers and M. Night Shyamalan's Signs. The chilling score is noticeable from the get-go as the hum and the heartbeat manipulates your senses. Some of the images dance slowly across the screen, never slowing down to a bore.

Scarlett Johansson's femme fatale creature is calculating, tactical. She's precise in her pursuit. If there is any compromising moment in the hunt, she scraps the moment and moves on to the next attempt. Using sex as bait on young men is just too effective. When you see a black wigged, made-up Scarlett how can you not get into a van with her? The fact that these scenes were filmed using hidden cameras on oblivious walker-bys without making that segment of the film gimmicky only adds to Glazer's skilled film-making abilities. It's a film that almost demands to be re-watched, as you are likely to find little marks here and there that you may have missed. It's the long-awaited true Cinephile's alien movie. And although the film gets lost a little bit in it's own abstraction as the female creature begins to empathize with the human race, the memorable imagery never slips between the cracks. When the two humans are submerged and the one sees the other get "processed", how are you to ever erase that from your brain? There is an artful brutality to this picture that Nicholas Winding Refn only wishes he could have achieved in Only God Forgives. So many aspects that will stick with you for days, months maybe. Mica Levi's score is so much like the background noise we heard in The Master or There Will be Blood, but it's so brilliantly embedded in the fabric of the film that hearing anything remotely resembling the sounds after will trigger your memories and have you looking behind your back for a Dodge Sprinter as you walk down an empty street. As the cold temptress creeps through the Scottish city, Glazer forces you to look at your own race through a different set of eyes. You sympathize with the poor young men that are so unfortunate to fall victim to their own libido. But you soon find yourself sympathizing with the very creature that so mercilessly takes them from the world. Another testament to Glazer's pure brilliance with making this film. Under the Skin is a hypnotic art piece. So cleverly disturbing without being pure gore, and unnerving without using any horror cliches.