Category Archives: Thriller

2020s, 2022, B+, Comedy, Grade, Horror, Past, Review, review-movie, Thriller, Year

Film Review: Bodies Bodies Bodies – 2022

March 24, 2024 The Critic Leave a comment

Director(s)	Halina Reijn
Principal Cast	Amandla Stenberg as Sophie Maria Bakalova as Bee Myha’la Herrold as Jordan Chase Sui Wonders as Emma Rachel Sennott as Alice
Release Date	2022
Language(s)	English
Running Time	94 minutes
Report Card	Click to go to Review TLDR/Summary

Closeup of Bee and Sophie making out. The focus is on the erotic element.

The soundscape is littered with the sounds of birds and bees, animalistic noises and the symbols of sexual euphemism come to life, as the camera focuses on a fitting image of a loving, lustful engagement – a gratuitous make-out session – whose noises enter into the cacophony. The frame’s first focus is the encounter, the experience and not the experiencers – an intentional choice that affirms a “living in the moment.”

Then, the camera pulls back to reveal the subjects of this amorous encounter, Sophie (Amandla Stenberg) and Bee (Maria Bakalova), who are caught in the throes of passion, their desire for their respective partner’s body overwhelming any other drive – humans rendered as their basest selves.

From this vantage point, the greenery surrounding the couple in the backdrop shot out-of-focus to render it into a hue of colors, an impressionistic embrace and framing by nature, calls back to the idyllic Eden, this time populated by two Eves.

This paradise continues for a while until Sophie declares her love to Bee, the latter of which smiles back without giving a verbal response.

The title card drops as the duo looks at their phones.

The enunciation is immediately interrupted by the harsh musical tunings of Slayyyter ‘s “Daddy AF” and we cut to the two characters, previously protected by the lush greens, now encased in a metallic husk, a car, with phones in their hands as opposed to on one another – technological transmutation, a counterpoint to the openings positioning of the human as pure animality freed from anthropocentric constraints.

With the shift to this “hi-tech” humanity, we see new concerns bleed into the environment, replacing the love from before with a sense of worry. Bee looks at her phone with concern, scrolling through it with a sense of dread. Sophie attempts to assuage her, claiming that her friends’ digital personas, profiles Bee is looking over are not as “nihilistic” as portrayed and are indicative of what said friends want others “to think” of them.

Thus, the phone is rendered as a barrier to unfettered love, a portal to false images by which persons can look at others in an artificial, distanced manner.

The camera cuts from the inside of the vehicle to wide shots of the vehicle traversing lush, green mountains before a nice aerial shot reveals a wide-spanning mansion, the location of the get-together that Sophie is taking Bee to, a party with the aforementioned friends that Bee feels the need to research before meeting in an attempt to not make a fool of herself. We’re a far ways from the idyllic Eden where love can find and cultivate itself without regards for the thoughts of outside observers.

Bee (Maria Bakalova) and Sophie (Amandla Stenberg) kiss in front of the greens.

The couple gets out and heads to the luxurious abode but Bee hesitates and claims she has to retrieve something from the vehicle. Sophie rushes over, tells her not to dally for too long, and kisses her partner once again. But this attempt to channel the Edenic opening fails. There’s a space here made all the more poignant by the greens around them which are now fully in focus: discreteness generates distance.

Bee goes back to the car and immediately checks her face in the rear-view mirror, touching up her image to ensure that her ensuing meeting with the persons she’s spent time researching will come to joyous fruition. The reflective surface serves as an analog to the phone from earlier, an interface by which the ego can render itself into its most pleasing form.

Satisfied by her appearance, she finally gets out and begins to walk into the abode. The shot frames her in the background with the car’s dashboard and mirror in the foreground. We watch her move towards the house and cut right as she disappears behind the mirror she’s just spent time consulting with: she’s entered the mirror world, the realm of appearances.

David (Pete Davidson) and Emma (Chase Sui Wonders) float.

Meanwhile, the mansion’s inhabitants peacefully float around in a pool, a man-made approximation of nature, of Eden, that can’t recreate the same idyllic peace but serves as a temporary reprieve, a metaphorical womb of sorts. This moment is interrupted by the presence of Sophie; she appears at the edge of the pool, her image distorted and shifting, and disrupts the reflection of those below. Confrontation looms at the boundary of the water qua mirror, a counterpoint of sorts to Bee’s earlier moment by herself.

The crew comes up and engages with Sophie. Alice (Rachel Sennot) eagerly greets her friend while the rest of the group slowly acclimates to the presence, treating their supposed comrade more like an intrusion, questioning her presence at their get-together. As all the characters pop out, Greg (Lee Pace) pops out of the water and reveals that the paradisal picture was merely a competition ground; the group had been testing the limits of their breathing capacities and he’s won the competition. The game of compare and contrast has already started.

Bee (Maria Bakalova) is framed alone in the house.

While this group converses, Bee enters the house, a moment which showcases the opulence of the manor in a wonderful tracking shot that starts on the ceiling and goes to Bee’s face as she gazes around entranced. A cut shows her framed by the doors of the house, a new entrant to the world of the bourgeoise who finds herself held in its purview. She enters the backyard pool environment and is initially cast alone, her outsider status re-affirmed.

Sophie quickly runs to her partner’s side, wraps her arms around her, and begins to introduce her to the rest of the crowd, stopping on Greg who is revealed to be Alice’s most recent beau, another new entrant to this social scene – seemingly obvious given his age gap compared to the rest of the group. The framing switches from Bee alone to Bee with Sophie to the couple now cast to one side of the frame against the already established group – two worlds primed to collide.

Greg’s immediate reaction to learning that this is THE Sophie immediately informs us of an undercurrent pervading this social scene, one that has been building since her cohorts first became aware of her appearance. There’s a palpable tension building as we wait to learn what Sophie’s done. Just like Bee, we’re outsiders to this group’s dynamic and must learn how to swim in its ebb and flow.

Quickly, thinly veiled barbs start materializing into larger concerns. The group calls out Sophie for being unresponsive in the group chat. She hasn’t been part of the group’s festivities in some time and her presence is a genuine surprise to everyone else. What exactly does she want?

Then, Alice goes to get champagne to celebrate the festivities. David (Pete Davidson), the party’s host, chastises her for taking his “dad’s shit”, revealing this abode and everything within as part of the generational wealth he’s been born into, but he ultimately doesn’t push the matter when she exclaims the presence of their seemingly unavailable friend warrants a toast. In perfect synergy with his partner, Greg then comes out into the fray with an antique sword and slices the bottle open in a wonderful show, a demonstration which upsets David even more than the retrieval of the bottle. He not only repeats his warning to not touch his father’s property but goes so far as to act and grab the weapon away from the only other male presence – class and gender become inextricably tied as masculinity becomes coded, albeit jokingly, as a threat.

The subtle interactions of the group reveal their individual relationships to one another and to wealth itself which help inform both us and Bee of the underlying dynamics at work, an interplay which has become more complex as an unseen member, Max (Conner O’Malley) is disclosed to be missing due to alluded antagonisms. Additionally, the group realizes that they too are unfamiliar with the new Sophie who surprises everyone with her announcement of sobriety. Suddenly, the reason for the toast itself, a gesture meant to include Sophie within the festivities with aplomb, is undermined and leaves the group searching for something new to celebrate.

In a sick joke, as if we needed any more proof of the group’s opulence, they choose to then dedicate their drinks to the impending hurricane; a devastating event for commoners becomes a time for celebration for those who are capable of sheltering away from such tragedy. But nature cares not for wealth, and the imposing presence of the hurricane makes good on its promise and forces the group to go inside even as David takes the time, with sword in hand, to challenge the natural phenomena before giving up and throwing the sword on the floor thereby confirming that his concerns over its damages at the hands of Greg were based in pride and antagonism: property is only valuable as an extension of one’s image – a succinct take on the purpose of class.

Back in the house, our initial couple attempts to engage in another make-out session, this time framed against the backdrop of the mansion, which is quickly interrupted by the party’s host who takes Sophie aside to learn for the latter’s reason for coming to the event. Class dictates new conventions and the show of nature, initially cast as serene at the film’s start, becomes interrupted and commented on by observers. Privacy no longer exists.

This is confirmed when Bee slowly explores the house, entranced by the images of family and grandeur all around her. She’s clearly alienated by this environment but is unable to even take the entirety of the locale in before Jordan (Myha’la Herrold) intercedes, informs Bee of Sophie’s wealth which is comparatively greater to even David’s, and issues a warning to the newest newcomer: “Just be careful, okay? With Sophie. Just… Be Careful.” As she delivers this cautionary comment, the camera slowly pivots and uses the framing of the wall to divide these two parties into separate partitions – new groupings are being formed.

Suddenly, the mysteries of Sophie are turned against Bee as she’s now thrown into the currents of a group-dynamic which she knows nothing about and is forced to accept that she may not know her partner as well as she previously thought. The previous exchanges amongst the group code this interaction in multiple fashions and transform it into a labyrinth to be navigated with caution.

Is this this an analog to David and Greg’s previous confrontation at the pool, a female antagonism opposed to male, wherein Jordan takes on David’s role, Sophie takes on Greg’s role, and Bee, the seemingly poorest of the bunch, comes to be a stand-in for the “sword”, a symbol of power, in this case companionship, which must be controlled as an extension of one’s image?

Or is this an example of class solidarity, an extension of Jordan’s concern with not dropping the incredibly expensive alcohol, a thought which seemingly crossed none of the other party members’ minds, wherein she is looking out for Bee as someone who is also alienated by the displays of affluence? It would certainly make sense of her earlier, unprompted provocation about the stature of Sophie’s wealth.

We’re left to ponder the intent as Jordan happily hops down the hallway, out of sight, leaving only her eerie words behind.

David (Pete Davidson) obsesses zooms onto his face.

As the interactions continue to proliferate, the film’s symbol par excellence, the cell-phone, continues to gain functions and becomes cemented as a pivotal tool in each character’s toolbox. It serves as mirror which can allow one to modify their appearance. It can allow for communication with parties not present within the immediate space, allowing for intimate connection. It can combine these functions and be used as a tool for social capital, capturing interactions meant for large-scale consumption vis-à-vis applications like Tik Tok. Director Halina Reijn imbues the object with nuance, an interface wherein all aspects of identity play around in relation to different socialized systems of power, but constantly demonstrates the way this nuance is discarded in favor of projects funded by the ego, affirmations of selfishness at the cost of everything else, a cost which will the film will explore with relish as its run-time continues.

Eventually, the group, including Bee, fall fully under the influence of their drugs and/or drinks of choice and are fully able to interact with one another, the substances operating as catalysts for interaction that previously was too shy to occur organically. It’s a ritual meant to summon the affects of Eden, nature at peace with itself, into a space that’s anything, the abode of capital and egotistical antagonisms that take priority over everything else.

Azelia Bank’s iconic “212” starts to play as the group begins to dance with aplomb while losing themselves in its frenetic energy, but as evidenced by the opening’s musical break, we know this is set to fail. The frenetic hand-held montage can’t sustain the same passion evinced by the opening as the constant-cutting showcases the power of the gaze and its violent powers.

Intimate moments of potential connection are ripped apart as persons are repeatedly transformed into outsiders who project their own fears and concerns onto these new dalliances, transforming would-be encounters into battlegrounds where the excluded participants make themselves known and vie for total control of the situation.

Jordan stares with a fervor as Sophie and Bee dance, her warning looming in the distant background.

Alice immediately pushes Sophie aside when the latter dances with the only other outsider in the group, Greg – a move that immediately stops the establishment of solidarity.

Sophie is prodded by David to look at Bee and Jordan dancing and is clearly perturbed by this interaction. Her reaction marks the beginning of the end and she calls the affairs to a stand-still and proposes that the group play a game, the titular “Bodies Bodies Bodies.”

The rules of the game are explained as the group waits.

The game, a take on popular games like “Mafia” or “Werewolf”, designates one player as a killer and tasks the other players with figuring out their identity before the players are fully eliminated. The players must navigate the house in the dark with a light and the next session of the game can only start when someone finds a deceased member and calls out the game’s title: “Bodies Bodies Bodies.” Thus, the implicit arena of the dance-floor becomes explicit within a game that actively forces the players to ascertain one another’s true intentions and come to meaningful conclusions as violence looms around every corner.

However, this variant of the game starts off with a ritualized ceremony, a credo of sorts, that sees each player take a shot and then slap the player next to them. The symbolic violence and rush of the game is not enough for these people and they need to ramp up the stakes even more to feel something in their insulated, privileged lives.

The ritual goes along well until Bee, the female outsider, refuses to hit David as hard as she’s expected to, obviously taking the trappings of the game as a limiting factor to the violence, choosing to play within the realm of symbols instead of letting such desires sublimate into reality. But David takes her refusal as a window to showcase what should actually be done – the host enforcing the laws of the land – and viciously punches Greg, the male outsider, the party who already emasculated David unknowingly outside with the display of the sword, giving the audience a taste of what’s to come.

Alice quickly calms Greg down and the game begins. The lights are turned out and the players are told to hide amongst the house. Of course, Bee armed with her cell-phone, uses it to navigate the environment, an abode which already alienates her with its affluence, and determines her allegiances, choosing to try and form a companionship with Alice, who runs away from her, and avoid Jordan, who narrowly misses Bee as she hides.

Suddenly, the call is made. The group convenes. The lights turn on.

And as expected, the resulting conversation immediately devolves into personal slights, indictments based on knowledge that one would never know outside of the game, so called “meta-gaming” moments that reveal the antagonisms within the group that had been swirling up for so long up to this moment. We see the formation of in-groups and the way they determine outsiders and see the ruptures becoming to form, conflicts which break out into reality when the next round starts and a body is found again, this time genuinely dead and un-moving. Now, the game will truly begin as it becomes realized in the flesh.

As this violent investigation continues, conflicts which we had only seen parts of rear their ugly heads. Alliances are tested and at each critical juncture new information is revealed which makes ascertaining the assassin increasingly difficult. No one can be trusted and the character’s, stuck using their own knowledge of one another, information which has been coded by all parties to fit their own self-interests, find themselves trapped in a nightmarish environment where anything and everything threatens to take them out.

With the lights fully out due to the storm, this variant of the game, one enforced by the rules of nature proper, never has a moment of proper deliberation with every encounter taking place in absolute darkness, the state of ambiguity. The power saps the utility of the phones, turning them into pure symbols meant to light the way – a perfect tying of form to content.

The set-up lets Reijn ratchet up tension, shooting the majority of the rest of the film in a handheld manner that reinforces the horror tropes one would associate with such a milieu and leads into moments of genuine tension.

However, as the storm rages on, the tight, intricate brushstrokes the film paints itself with, namely the minute point and counter-points related to class and gender, wash away under the pressures of the narrative and become far less focused and poignant, drowning under the pressure.

Ideas on class and gender become far more overarching than they need be and the manner by which the film demonstrates the logic of alienation is cast aside.

The script’s wonderful Gen-Z slang, awash in the tropes and stylings of online vernacular, previously used to reinforce the shallow manners by which the characters’ code themselves as perpetual victims and as better than one another, eventually becomes superficial in end of itself, servicing the film with nothing more than punch-lines that elicit laughs but do very little in taking the aforementioned sub textual machinations to the next level, a move that would evaluate this horror-skinned murder mystery into the realm of a full-blooded classic.

While the broad splatters the film ultimately uses to finish populating its canvas tie together the plotlines in a formally competent and satisfying manner, neatly calling back to some of the larger overtures established at the film’s start, the ultimate reveal, the film’s punch-line so to speak, may alienate viewers looking for something grander underneath the veneer of it all. And while that particular message and related revelation may be the film’s biggest point, a perfect encapsulation of sorts of its characters and the manner by which it treats them, it’s a shame that it seemingly becomes the only fully developed statement delivered when so much groundwork had been laid down to present a more multi-faceted thesis.

Using the film’s pressing scenario as a metaphor, there’s a hurricane waiting to be unleashed on the viewer, but the film settles for a torrent of rain instead, foregoing the other elements that would augment such a phenomenon and generate a storm that would truly stand-out.

REPORT CARD

TLDR	Much like the party and game at the heart of it’s story, the film is filled with an abundance of jokes, kinetic scenes, and moments of grandeur that ultimately delivers goods that should satisfy those looking for a fun horror-skinned murder mystery and satire on the parlance of identity politics, but the vacuous nature of this delivery may disappoint those looking for something a bit more profound.
Rating	8.8/10
Grade	B+

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2020s, 2022, A, Drama, Grade, Horror, Past, psychological, Review, review-movie, supernatural, Thriller, Year

Film Review: The Black Phone – 2022

July 3, 2022 The Critic Leave a comment

Director(s)	Scott Derrickson
Principal Cast	Mason Thames as Finney Madeleine McGraw as Gwen Ethan Hawke as The Grabber
Release Date	2022
Language(s)	English
Running Time	103 minutes
Report Card	Click to go to Review TLDR/Summary

A Little League baseball game is underway. The pitcher, Finney (Mason Thames), winds up and throws the ball. The batter, Bruce (Tristan Pravong), swings and misses. Strike one. The crowd cheers for Finney and he can feel their approval hanging in the balance.

He winds up and throws again. Strike two. The crowd’s encouragement increases. A girl within the crowd stares at Finney with affection. He takes notice; the pressure is on.

The ball leaves his hand on the third throw but this time Bruce is ready for it; the bat connects with the ball and it soars over the gates – a homerun. Suddenly, the momentum flips and Bruce becomes the recipient of the adulation while Finney is relegated to the periphery.

We follow Bruce as he leaves the field, glowing in victory. Edgar Winters’ “Free Ride” plays evoking a feeling of jubilation. But then a black van enters the frame and the color and sound begin to fade leaving an all-consuming void in its wake – the happy façade breaks to reveal the grotesque underbelly.

Mark Korven’s unsettling score complete with a rhythmic pulse and discordant fluctuations starts to play as the title credits start to play – it’s time to enter the dark. This montage is presented in an aesthetic fashion similar to director Scott Derickson’s previous horror film, Sinister, utilizing the grainy texture of film stock proper to accentuate the uncanny series of images. In strong contrast to the opening’s evocation of a cheery 70’s milieu, the decisive switch in aesthetic and tone is a grim reminder of the horrors of the time lurking in wait – kidnappings and missing children on milk cartons, and the like.

It’s from this fractured backdrop that we join Finney once again. He’s revealed to be a prime target of hostile forces all around. From a drunk, violent father at home to bullies at school, Finney is constantly forced into compromising positions where he finds himself wholly at the whims of other parties; even when he’s bailed out of the awful situations he finds himself in, it’s due to the efforts of his friend Robin (Cazarez Mora) and his sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) intervening on his behalf. His own sense of agency is sorely lacking.

But when he’s kidnapped by a serial child abductor referred to as the “Grabber” (Ethan Hawke), Finney is forced to abandon his passivity and discover his strengths or die trying. He finds himself trapped in a seemingly isolated and sound-proofed basement structure with no tools in sight sans a broken telephone attached on the wall. Yet, while the phone isn’t plugged into any power source and seems completely busted up, it still rings, serving as an conduit to unseen forces from the beyond who seek to intervene in the seemingly impossible situation.

The supernatural propels the narrative forward, operating on a mostly demonstrative, seldom explained layer that works to supplement the true-crime horror narrative. While the presentation of this material feels like an extension of Sinister in tone and feel, its use is more in line with Derrickson’s earlier supernatural procedural, The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Like that film, otherworldly phenomena – grainy dream-sequences and spectral sightings – are couched within ambiguities which gestures towards multiple different angles of interpretation. This explicative restraint works in the films favor as it lets the characters’ struggles take focus; the supernatural set-pieces are just pieces of connective tissue that characters find themselves working with and through and are not the cause of interest in end of themselves.

The primary source of scares comes from Hawke’s “Grabber”, an masked man teetering on the edge of an emotional meltdown. At one moment he’s coy and wants to play nice. At another he’s downright malicious and one step away from a violent explosion. For every persona, he dons a new mask on, accentuating his instability and giving Hawke ample opportunity to flex his facial muscles in new, menacing configurations. The uncertainty behind what he wants adds to the suffocating feeling as his erratic behavior presents a minefield for Finney to traverse through.

However, while Finney finds himself powerless at the start of the film, he quickly finds himself changing for what the situation calls. His experiences dealing with abuse in more grounded scenarios helps him play the Grabber’s inexplicable games as the latter’s acts just feels like an amplification of the atrocities he’s used to dealing with. Thus, his progression is clearly demarcated; the film uses its opening to demonstrate where Finney struggles and then utilizes the supernatural trappings of his struggle with the Grabber to highlight his growth.

The film does misstep slightly when it comes to wrapping up all the relevant story threads as the manner by which certain narrative parallels made between the domestic and horrific conclude seem incongruous with one another, but the overwhelming momentum of how Finney’s arc culminates more than buoys the issue.

REPORT CARD

TLDR	The Black Phone is Scott Derrickson’s best film as of yet and seems him combining the aesthetic sensibilities and sense of unease from Sinister with the narrative ambiguity and supernatural restraint of The Exorcism of Emily Rose. The result is a tense, supernatural, character-driven story that earns its shocks.
Rating	8.9/10
Grade	A

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2010s, 2014, Grade, Horror, mystery, Past, Review, review-movie, supernatural, Thriller, Year

Film Review: Annabelle – 2014

June 8, 2022 The Critic Leave a comment

Director(s)	John R. Leonetti
Principal Cast	Annabelle Wallis as Mia Form Ward Horton as John Form Alfre Woodard as Evelyn Tony Amendola as Father Perez
Release Date	2014
Language(s)	English
Running Time	98 minutes
Report Card	Click to go to Review TLDR/Summary

The film opens with text explaining the multifaceted function of dolls: they can be toys, collectibles, or conduits for demonic activity. Then, the opening from The Conjuring plays as a group of nurses explain the havoc they faced at the hands of a demonic doll named Annabelle – the opening exposition immediately comes to head. The camera pushes into the doll’s unnerving face before cutting to black.

From the black, we cut to a church and the camera pans from the glass windows to a demonic gargoyle visage. The blood red title card drops in and reinforces a malevolent feeling indicating that Annabelle’s presence is very much present in this holy domain.

A location card reveals that the film has jumped back a year in the past. While Father Perez (Tony Amendola) extols the virtues of sacrifice in his sermon, the camera moves to the congregation onto a young expecting couple, John (Ward Horton) and Mia (Annabelle Wallis) Form.

While the order of this opening sequence isn’t as crisp as it should be – it jumps from a piece of written exposition that adds very little to a scene of exposition from another film to then yet another location card before finally getting to the primary characters – the basic roadmap for the narrative is established: the demonic presence associated with Annabelle is after this newly established family with a baby on the way.

Someone is watching Mia (Annabelle Wallis).

An eerie point-of-view from behind a mesh-structure raises the stakes: something is already following Mia. The couple gets back to their home where Mia chastises John for not locking the door. Changing times and unease in the air means even the tranquility of the suburbs is no longer a guarantee. A news report on the Manson murders starts to play further entrenching the feeling of malevolence: there’s something evil bubbling. The tension ratchets as the camera cuts to close-up shots of Mia sewing, implying an accident to come – a burst in the bubble.

Suddenly, John calls out and asks for Mia to turn off the television; he thinks the distressing news might influence the fetus within the womb and wants to ensure its safety. Consequently, Mia turns off the television and machine, bringing a temporary calm. The coast seems clear and the feeling improves as John calls Mia to give her a gift.

But as it’s revealed that his present is none other than Annabelle, our mood immediately dissipates. Mia’s elated because she’s a doll collector and places the doll proudly on a shelf with her other figures, but we know that this is only the beginning of something awful to come. The camera moves closer to Annabelle’s visage and the cheerful sounds of the couple’s celebration become distorted by a discordant ringing. Evil has found a place to roost.

The camera moves from Mia (Annabelle Wallis) , who is comfortably asleep…

The young couple turns in for the night, and the camera slowly moves up from their sleeping bodies towards their bedroom window, showcasing a bout of brutal violence happening in their neighbor’s house – the bubble forming up till now has finally popped and given way to a malevolent storm. The disturbance wakes Mia who asks John to check out the situation; he comes out in shock and tells her to call the police.

The camera follows Mia in one singular motion as she runs in through her front door to get to the phone; yet in her haste, she forgets to lock up and the killers from next door enter in the background without her knowing; the trappings of the Manson murders come to the forefront as the home invasion proceeds. The male killer stabs Mia’s stomach – evil has now penetrated the domestic barrier and threatens to take the unborn.

Though the police make their way just in time to save the couple from death, they’re unable to stop the corrupting influence of the demonic realm. The killers may be dead, but their presence has only accelerated the haunting to come. Blood from the female killer drips down to the Annabelle doll’s face and streams into its eye before being absorbed. The demonic presence grows stronger and, much to John’s chagrin, has clearly started to permeate their unborn child’s existence. Even though John and Mia tried to stop the evils of their worlds from permeating into their lives, malevolent forces have found a way in; like the Manson murders from earlier, the violence the couple experiences are broadcast on television. But instead of being turned off and put out of sight and mind, the static image dissolves into an ultrasound view of Mia’s stomach demonstrating just how entrenched in the darkness the Form family is. Now they find themselves in a true battle against a demonic force looking to take everything from them.

Thus, Annabelle positions itself to be an exploration of motherhood and the loss of domestic stability in a similar vein to Rosemary’s Baby. From the Manson murders to the home invasion proper, the film stresses that the domestic family structure is under attack. The domain of motherhood which furnishes love and guidance is no longer safe as acrimonious forces threaten to intervene and corrupt, bringing despair instead of peace.

However, just like the opening sequence, the film often stumbles in getting from one point to the next. Instead of focusing on Mia’s relationship to motherhood and the way she tries to orient herself within a fractured domestic space, the film opts to bracket its maternal discussion within a more abstract, religious good versus evil framing. This faith-based orientation might’ve worked if the story spent time to develop its characters motivations along these lines, but in the frenzied attempt to get all the different beats set-up, director John R. Leonetti and screen-writer Gary Dauberman forget that it’s the characters relationship with themes that makes them poignant not the ideas themselves, especially not in the basic manner the story opts to present them.

Unfortunately, the characters are underdeveloped and their motivations are stated in such a straight-forward and unfelt manner that it becomes impossible to take the haunting as seriously as the story seems to want to. While this disconnect between thematic aspirations and actualities is minimal to start with, it balloons to extreme proportions by the end of the film: the themes (and characters) cannibalize one another and undermine the finale in its totality, transforming a potentially cathartic ending into nothing more than a farce.

Mia (Annabelle Wallis) stares at Annabelle in a chair.

It’s a shame because Annabelle has all the components to tell a gripping tale capable of exploring the Mia’s relationship to motherhood. Leonetti constantly employs compositions that stress the ever-growing battle between Mia and Annabelle for control of the Form family – it’s clearly the tale that he wants to tell and proves he’s more than capable of.

Evaluated independently outside of the context of the overarching narrative, the sequences between these two parties are done competently at a technical level. At their best, these scenes evoke the same polished put-togetherness feeling present in James Wan’s supernatural outings, utilizing deft camera movements and drawn-out set-ups made up of multiple moving parts to generate moments of palpable tension. However, unlike Wan’s work, where the sequences naturally build into one another and propel momentum to the finish line, each interesting movement in Annabelle operates in its own discrete space, leaving little impact on the work as a whole as it stutters to its ending.

REPORT CARD

TLDR	Annabelle is demonstrative proof that less is more as its over bloated story undermines its themes, emotional beats, and technically-executed horror sequences. The story about a mother trying to protect her soon-to-be born child should be compelling given the proper set-up, but the film’s decision to veer away from this core story in order to add unneeded depth only complicates and weakens it. While there are great moments within the film, they never get to shine because the overarching structure of the narrative renders them emotionally and thematically sterile soon after.
Rating	6.7/10
Grade	C

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2020s, 2022, B+, Black-Comedy, Grade, Past, Review, review-movie, S+, Science Fiction, Thriller, Year

Film Review: Dual – 2022

April 21, 2022 The Critic Leave a comment

Director(s)	Riley Stearns
Principal Cast	Karen Gillan as Sarah / Sarah’s Double Aaron Paul as Trent Beulah Koale as Peter Maija Paunio as Sarah’s Mother
Release Date	2022
Language(s)	English
Running Time	95 minutes
Report Card	Click to go to Review TLDR/Summary

A young man (Robert Michaels) rushes to a table stacked with weapons. He struggles to select one of them but during his moment of indecision an arrow flies past him. While he may be indecisive in picking his combat option, his opponent is not. A crowd cheers to the violence; this duel is a public spectacle.

The young man finally decides to act, evades the arrows that are fired at him, and moves towards his opponent before proceeding to butcher the latter with a knife. The camera moves to the corpse which is identical to the young man we’ve been cheering for; this has been a fight between doppelgangers. An announcer comes forward to congratulate the victor and asks him whether or not he’s the original or double. The young man responds that he’s the double and he is subsequently crowned the “true” Robert.

Thus, the stakes are set. In this world, doubles of persons exist and there are Battle Royale like duels between them to determine which one of them can stake their claim to being the “real” person in question. Identity, far from being a given, is a social marker that must be fought for. Furthermore, the doubles are well-defined, empathetic persons who seek to survive and not the pale imitations of an original one might expect. Dual intentionally opens from the perspective of the double instead of the original Robert to position the viewer behind them; we naturally cheer for the character we initially identify with and so when it’s revealed that they’re a “double” who has “stolen” their life from an original, our empathy is turned on its head. While it seems proper to cheer for someone fighting for their life, a double fighting their original in an attempt to subsume the latter’s life and identity along with it presents its own set of ethical issues. The same action becomes framed from two perspectives one of which is predicated on the idea of one owning their own identity and the other on the idea of one owning their own life; the schism between life and identity is what Dual seeks to explore.

The story cuts from the newly crowned Robert, to a young woman, Sarah (Karen Gillan), who seems to be living her worst life. Her apartment is saturated in depressing blues that make telling the time of day impossible. Her mom (Maija Paunio) constantly calls and messages her, interrupting any attempt at alone time. Her partner, Peter (Beulah Koale) is off at work and seems to be uninterested in conversing with her. Her only form of interaction with the world comes from the blue screens of her phone and laptop illuminating her face. It’s clear that Sarah is alienated; there’s no vitality to be found as she passively engages with a world that seems to ignore her angst.

But she soon learns that she’s contracted a terminal disease and is guaranteed by her doctor that the chances of surviving are 0%. Consequently, Sarah is offered an opportunity to replicate herself and create a double to live on in her place after her passing. The procedure is marketed a gift to be given by the soon-to-be deceased to their living friends and family as a way of taping over the grieving process; it’s fine that your special someone has died because you can live with a clone formed from their DNA.

Despite being unable to afford the procedure herself, Sarah signs on when she’s informed that her double, upon assuming the role of “Sarah” on passing, would then be responsible for the payment plan responsible for their genesis. Sarah has nothing to worry about because she’ll be dead. Sold on the idea, she signs on and meets her double, aptly named “Sarah’s Double” soon after.

While the latter questions her source on “their” shared interests and hobbies in an attempt to better emulate her, it becomes apparent Sarah and her double are not the peas in a pod promised by the advert. The double seems to have opposite tastes in food, entertainment, and aesthetic style. If she’s supposed to serve as a stand-in for Sarah’s friends and family, she seems to be a poor fit. Yet, Sarah’s mother and Peter seem more than okay with Sarah’s Double, reacting to her with a sense of warmth and energy that fly in direct contrast to the treatment Sarah had to deal with. She comes to realize that far from taking her place upon death, her double has decided to make the transition early and take over as fast as possible.

Thankfully, or so she thinks, Sarah learns that her incurable terminal illness has somehow gone into remission. As a result, she’s allowed to put in a request to decommission her double. However, her double appeals under a newfound amendment to the constitution to “stay” and continue living as “Sarah”. Consequently, the original Sarah is locked into a duel to the death for the privilege of existing as “Sarah”. The opening becomes reframed as a death knell; if doubles are capable of winning in brutal fashion and celebrated for doing so, then the outgoing and more energetic Sarah’s double seems more than certain of defeating the lethargic, unmotivated Sarah.

By channeling the essence of Yorgos Lanthimos’s (Dogtooth, The Lobster) brand of surreal humor – deadpan delivery of serious lines meant to call attention to the absurd nature of the situation with accompanying stoic reactions – director Riley Stearns forces the viewer to focus on the nature of the identity problem inherent to Dual instead of the logistics or theatrics of the situation. This is a story that’s more curious on the logic by which identity can be stripped and gifted by personal, social, and legal entities, revealing the contingencies upon which identity furnishes itself. As Sarah is forced to deal with her impending duel, she’s’ made to reckon with the dual nature of the lives her double and her live.

She starts as a woman sentenced to death who willfully accepts the same and decides to live by extension through a double. Her double does what she’s advertised to do and brings a love and warmth to Sarah’s loved ones that Sarah herself finds herself unable of producing. Upon realizing that she’ll survive, Sarah tries to kill via decommission her double and “take back” her life, a life which we know is in sharp contrast to the one she had lived up to the point. Once Sarah is challenged to the duel, she starts training to survive a battle to death for a life with people who want nothing to do with her as she is; in this vein, the identarian battle takes on a metaphysical character wherein Sarah’s double comes to stand-in as Sarah’s persona. Sarah is forced to tackle the source of her alienation – the disjunct between what she is and what she thinks she ought to be – in a literal battle.

However, while the film excels at demonstrating how Sarah navigates the contours of her personal life, it falters when it comes to connecting those aspects of her identity to the overarching bureaucratic forces that she’s forced to navigate. One of the running themes of the film is how Sarah’s day-to-day existence is structured around capitalistic institutions: the treatment she pays for is expensive and relies on a perverted extended payment plan, a lawyer to represent her, monthly fees to her double until the time of the duel, monthly payments to her trainer Trent (Aaron Paul), on top of everyday bills. Yet, the film never opts to show how she makes money, opting to tell the viewer about her financial struggles instead of showing or embellishing them. These moments would have not only given context to her struggles but would have also helped tie the larger thematic movements of the film with Sarah’s personal journey. This lack of cohesion between the minor and major aspects of Sarah’s life make the subversive gestures Dual tends towards less poignant. Instead of appreciating the way the narrative unfolds, this lack of an obvious “bigger” point might frustrate viewers who don’t want to grapple with the sardonic presentation the film opts for.

REPORT CARD

TLDR	Riley Stearns’s Dual might miss the mark for viewers looking for a clear, hefty film with messages to gleam through, as its exploration of a battle between original persons fighting their clones for the former’s identity takes on a cerebral, sardonic tone that operates via subversion and suggestion, but it should satisfy those viewers attuned to the absurdist comedic leanings of Yorgos Lanthimos’s works.
Rating	8.6/10
Grade	B+

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2010s, 2015, C+, Grade, Horror, mystery, Past, Review, review-movie, supernatural, Thriller, Year

Film Review: Insidious: Chapter 3 – 2015

January 19, 2022 The Critic Leave a comment

Director(s)	Leigh Whannell
Principal Cast	Lin Shaye as Elise Rainier Stefanie Scott as Quinn Brenner Dermot Mulroney as Sean Brenner
Release Date	2015
Language(s)	English
Running Time	98 minutes
Report Card	Click to go Review TLDR/Summary

The title sequence starts in typical Insidious fashion: the credits are written with blue letters that dissipate in ethereal fashion before violent instrumentals punctuate the soundscape and the ominous red title card comes into frame. More blue text indicates that this third chapter in the franchise is a prequel to the first two movies. Then the text fades to a black screen which explodes in a burst of white light; the light becomes a skyline where birds fly around and the camera moves down to street-level. A young woman, Quinn Brenner (Stefanie Scott), walks down the street towards a house.

She knocks on the front door and an elderly woman, Elise (Lin Shaye) comes to answer. Quinn indicates she’s heard of Elise’s psychic powers and consultations and requests help with a supernatural affair. Elise responds in the negative and explains that her days of psychic entrepreneurship are over. Nonetheless, the sincerity of Quinn’s pleas moves Elise and she offers the would-be-customer a chance to come in and talk.

Quinn explains that she’s lost her mother some time ago and thinks that the latter is communicating with her. Since the occasion, she’s become insistent on reaching back out; it’s clear that her mom served a critical role in her life and confirmation of such contact would help Quinn find a firm footing in life. Elise gets swept up in the admission and begrudgingly offers to help Quinn try and contact Quinn’s deceased mother.

Elise turns out the light and begins delving into the realm beyond, but it becomes clear that something is going wrong. The camera pushes in from behind Quinn; something is coming. She turns and looks behind her and senses an unseen presence in the room. It’s clear that the wrong specter has heard the call. Elise’s face contorts in pain and she stops the séance, indicating that such occupational dangers are the reason she’s left the profession. The retired psychic turns to Quinn and warns the latter to stop reaching out for her mother because any message to one of the dead can be heard by all of them, and as the two just witnessed, some of the specters from beyond are more than willing to cause harm to those who call to them.

Alas, now that the other side has heard Quinn’s call and knows her of the depths of her longing, it’s not going to let her go so easily. Dark forces slowly infiltrate her life and begin to wreak havoc, leaving her bruised and damaged in her journey to find her mother. Unable to deal with the supernatural shenanigans, Sean (Dermot Mulroney), Quinn’s father, contacts Elise to help with the situation. The psychic is thus forced back into the fray and must confront her own inner demons as she seeks to stop the demonic forces that currently threaten Quinn’s life.

Unfortunately, for fans of the franchise, the film’s status as a prequel makes the journey to come predictable; the fate of pivotal characters is already known, so a sense of tension is missing. The script doesn’t account for this in any fashion, opting for inoffensive and tried story beats to generate a baseline level of interest in what’s to come. At one level, the story spends little time in building up Quinn or her family; the relationships between members of the Brenner family never get pushed or stressed in ways that would give the characters something for the viewer to latch onto.

Meanwhile, Elise, who serves as a secondary hero in the story, is given very little to do, which is a shame when Lin Shaye is one of the better actors here. The journey of a psychic so scared by the darkness of the astral world that she seals her own power is one that has so much ground to traverse, but instead of giving Elise room to grow and understand her role, the story prods her to her foregone conclusion with little demonstration of Elise’s decision-making process.

Consequently, the narrative, though coherent, offers very little space to latch on. It’s a vehicle for frightening set-pieces. But just like the story, these set-pieces are lacking a vitality or ingenuity that sets them apart from traditional haunted-house fare. A character will notice something is wrong. A presence will show up. The character will look around for them and then BOOM. A loud jolt along with a “creepy” image and the sequence is done. While both Insidious and Insidious: Chapter 2 have “jump scares” in them, both films employ them in measured manners that lets them have an impact. They build up to their scares through a chaotic sound design which never gives the viewer a moment to rest or predict what’s going to come next. In contrast, Chapter 3 opts for the same audio design for each of its set-pieces which makes them feel more chore than scare.

The problem is frustrating because it’s clear that director Leigh Whannell is competent at the technical aspects of nailing suspenseful sequences. There are multiple moments where the tension builds naturally as entities enter the background quietly. There’s a time given to let a reaction build up. But instead of riding the momentum and delivering on the subtle and eerie nature of what’s going on, Whannell opts to go for bombastic and showy spectacles. This might be forgiven if, like Chapter 2, Chapter 3 utilized the metaphysical trappings of its universe to set-up visually distinctive spectacles, but it never manages to tap into the same visual possibilities. It’s telling when the first two entries bathe their supernatural sequences with hellish reds and astral blues and this entry only makes use of the color scheme at the start and end of its narrative. In fact, outside of some events in the third act, there’s very little here to distinguish the film as an entry in the franchise; it could have just been a supernatural story with no connection to what came before.

In this sense, Insidious: Chapter 3 is frustrating not because it’s particularly bad in any one way but because it never manages to embellish an identity for itself – a disappointment given the potential the mythos of the franchise offers. By opting for the safe and simple choice at most turns, the narrative never manages to endear itself to anyone looking for something deeper than just a simple and technically competent supernatural story.

REPORT CARD

TLDR	The third chapter in the Insidious franchise lacks the identity or charisma that made the previous entries, namely the first film, mainstays of the horror genre. The set-pieces and narrative never make use of the metaphysical possibilities inherent to the franchise, opting for conventional set-ups and trappings at every turn. While this may be entertaining for the viewer looking for a simple, conventional supernatural outing, those hoping for something unique and engaging should look elsewhere.
Rating	6.9/10
Grade	C+

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2020s, 2021, A+, Crime, Drama, Film Noir, Grade, Past, Review, review-movie, Thriller, Year

Film Review: Nightmare Alley – 2021

January 3, 2022 The Critic Leave a comment

Director(s)	Guillermo del Toro
Principal Cast	Bradley Cooper as Stanton “Stan” Carlisle Toni Collette as Zeena Cate Blanchett as Lilith Rooney Mara as as Molly
Release Date	2021
Language(s)	English
Running Time	150 minutes
Report Card	Click to go to Review TLDR/Summary

A man, Stan, drags a body into a decrepit, disheveled looking house. He places the body into a small hole in the ground and sets the house to flames. Who is being burned and why are they being disposed of in this fashion? These are the questions the narrative circles around; as Stan makes decisions, the film cuts to the scene of the fire, highlighting how his choices shape his relationship to the aspects of his past that he wishes to burn and move past.

With only a suitcase, a watch, and a few knick-knacks, Stan makes his way away from the burning household towards a bus. He gets on board and passes out. Suddenly, he’s woken at the last stop, a carnival, and makes his way out. It becomes clear that outside of getting away from his past, Stan has no clear goals; he’s merely a wanderer trying to make the best of his situation.

Though he comes in to the location by random, it’s clear that Stan is more than competent at making do with his situation. He travels through the carnival and comes upon a “geek” show. The carnival’s owner, Clem (Willem DaFoe), exclaims that even though “geek” in question is so feral he’s still been classified as a man. But still, he insists on posing the question: “Is he man, or beast?”

The crowd becomes fully enthralled by the tagline and buys into the show, forking over change to partake in the festivities. A malnourished and broken-in man (Paul Anderson) crawls out of a damp, grimy enclosing and approaches a chicken which has just been placed in the enclosure. The audience watches with baited breath, but Stan seems more disturbed by the ordeal than anything else. When the “geek” bites down on the chicken’s neck and severs its head, Stan turns while the crowd cheers and jeers at the ordeal.

He leaves the area and is approached by members of the carnival looking for physical labor. Without saying a word, Stan agrees to their proposition and quickly begins to work. He gets acquainted with Clem (Willem DaFoe) and agrees to take on additional work for food and pay; all his negotiations are carried out without an utterance on his part, only gestures. He’s more than content to nod along and play his part, whatever it may be.

It’s only when Clem sends him to capture the carnival’s “geek” after the latter escapes his cage that Stan finds a reason to open his mouth. Upon finding the “geek”, Stan attempts to bargain with the escapee. Stan promises not to inform Clem of his location and instead questions the “geek” on the nature of their predicament; how did this fellow end up desperate enough to eat live chickens for an audience?

But instead of an answer, Stan gets a blow to the head from a rock the “geek” throws. Words can do nothing here and Stan resorts to physical action, proceeding to beat to beat the “geek” into submission. Clem manages to find the duo and stops Stan from killing the performer before then offering him a permanent position with the carnival. Sensing Stan’s mysterious past, Clem suggests that the environment is perfect for the wanderer because no one working at the locale would pry into his past; maybe the “geek” responded in such fashion because he, like Stan, wants to keep his past a mystery.

Regardless, like the “geek”, Stan agrees to work for Clem at the carnival and eagerly embraces the change of scenery. He goes from saying nothing to becoming very talkative. He’s a people pleaser and seems to know exactly what to say to people around him. He’s approached by Zeena (Toni Colette), a carny with a clairvoyant performance who takes a liking to him quickly.

Zeena’s husband, Pete (David Strathairn) is a mentalist and an alcoholic who acts as a surrogate father to Stan. He quickly takes the young man under his wing and teaches him cold reading techniques capable of fooling even the best. With the techniques in hand, Stan blossoms, captivating any soul willing to listen to his words. He goes from a silent wanderer to a charismatic charlatan capable of conning anyone who comes his way, saying exactly what he thinks people want to hear. With the world seemingly at his beck and call, Stan proceeds out from the carnival and into the world determined to to use his skillsets to get everything he wants. But as his marks get more dangerous, Stan is forced to confront the depths of his deepest desires.

The film’s focus on how his desire unfurls is motivated by psychoanalysis – references are made directly in the text. In particular, Stan finds that his journey intersects with three women, Zeena being one of them, all of whom act as both a surrogate partner and mother to him. The Oedipal nature of the relation is intentional and informs the way the film operates. As Stan makes critical decisions in relation to these women, his final trajectory becomes apparent. The weight of every choice he makes reverberates and can be measured as the film cuts to flames as a visual refrain, a visual-call back to his original act of immolation showcasing just how far or close he is to the past he’s trying to escape.

His psychic journey is manifested in the production design. Director Guillermo del Toro does great work to ensure that Stan’s psychic encounters and battles take place in backdrops which reinforce the the shifting tides of power between parties. del Toro uses the noir stylings of the genre and narrative to accentuate the sets, leaning into the use shadows, smoke, and slanted angles to emphasize the nightmarish alleys that Stan finds himself traversing. The rooms and locales that people own are part and parcel of each characters’ identity, so as Stan engages in his mental excursions with persons, the nature of what the characters are after and why they’re after can be felt in even the subtle ways the camera moves.

The narrative, based on William Lindsay Gresham’s 1946 novel, is clock full of detail, providing ample narrative strings for the viewer to parse and put together against these larger visual flourishes. Every thread in play is set-up for a particular reason, and del Toro knows just how to litter the call-backs and references to generate a feeling of catharsis. No beat overstays its welcome and by the time the film’s ending comes into view, any viewer who’s become entranced will already know what is going to unfold and why its going to play out as it does because the way the film’s threads congeal is sublime.

REPORT CARD

TLDR	Nightmare Alley’s meticulous machinations makes it a wonder to marvel at; each story and character beat has a purpose and watching the threads come together in explosive fashion makes the slow-burn journey all the more satisfying.
Rating	10/10
Grade	A+

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2020s, 2021, F, Grade, Horror, Past, Review, review-movie, slasher, splatter, Thriller, Year

Film Review: Halloween Kills – 2021

November 5, 2021 The Critic Leave a comment

Director(s)	David Gordon Green
Principal Cast	Jaime Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode James Jude Courtney as Michael Myers Judy Greer as Karen Andi Matichak as Allyson Anthony Michael Hall as Tommy Doyle
Release Date	2021
Language(s)	English
Running Time	105 minutes
Report Card	Click to go to Review TLDR/Summary

NOTE: This is a new release and the review is based off a theatre viewing. This means the review won’t feature common elements like visual analysis, extended theme analysis, or long-form discussions of the cinematic techniques being used. Once I am able to get a copy of the movie to watch, pause, analyze, and get stills from the review will be updated to match the current site’s standard.

As a fan of director David Gordon Green’s 2018 namesake, revival and sequel to John Carpenter’s original 1978 masterpiece, Halloween, I was hopeful that Halloween Kills would continue its predecessor’s measured approach at delving into the psychology of the characters, namely Laurie(Jaime Lee Curtis), in relation to Michael(James Jude Courtney). While not in the same league as the original, Green’s previous film at least seems to understand that the terror of Michael stems not just from his brutality but from his inability to be understood or cognized. As an emissary and force of evil, he remains an enigma.

Unfortunately, Kills forgets this key fact and throws nuance to the wind in favor of brash and abrasive points, many of which become especially confusing when given a few moments thoughts. The film’s title sequence serves as warning for what’s to come. In contrast to Carpenter’s original film’s eerie and evocative opening sequence which sets its pace with a slow push in on a jack-o-lantern that flickers menacingly, Halloween Kill’s introduction opts for something more grandiose, pushing in on a sea of flaming jack-o-lanterns which dissipate upon contact with the camera. The former approach favors the slow build-up before the spectacle, choosing to savor the moment of impact, while the latter favors extravaganza for its own sake, trading slow and methodical for bombastic. These orientations towards terror set the stage for their respective films; Halloween is a tense, atmospheric, palpable nightmare waiting to imprint its horror onto its audiences’ mind, while Halloween Kills is a to-the-point gore-fest that seeks to assault its audience with a barrage of scenarios that fail to leave a lasting mark after their initial presentation.

While the story picks up right at the end of the previous film, it almost immediately undermines everything that happened before. As Laurie, Karen(Judy Greer), and Allyson(Andi Matichak) make it to the hospital, Michael is promptly freed from his burning prison and soon starts to slaughter everything in sight. His massacre calls the attention of the residents of Haddonfield, who, under the rallying cry of a much older and still very much traumatized Tommy Doyle(Anthony Michael Hall), the young boy Laurie babysat in Carpenter’s film, go to ensure “evil dies tonight.” Consequently, the narrative jumps between groups of civilians who try and hunt Michael through the city, unaware soon-to-be victims caught in the middle of his rampage, and Laurie along with her family recovering at the hospital.

Alas, none of these narrative threads is interesting or unique. Laurie’s story might as well have not been in the film given how little she ends up doing, and all the non-Laurie related plot-lines follow the same formula as one another: introduce character, introduce said character’s quirk in lieu of meaningful personality, kill character in brutal fashion. If the character is a mob character as opposed to just a victim caught unaware, they will mention, without fail, how dangerous Michael is to confront alone, let alone with group, before then confronting him alone. Forget predictable, try exhausting. Never at any point, does anything amount to more than casually interesting, and most of the film comes up much shorter than even that.

Rather than setting firm foundation and direction for the story and its ideas to traverse along, Green and his fellow screen-writers seem content with establishing threadbare connections to Carpenter’s ’78 film, as though mere association is enough to transfer heft from one story to another. Halloween Kills confuses reverence to the most minute details for enthralling cinematic texture, assuming that because the characters are related to the first film, that somehow the audience will care about them and invest into their respective stories. Every single character or detail, big or small, is highlighted by the film as if screaming, “See, it’s all connected!” But, by and large, the effort comes off as farce. No one outside of Laurie and her family, has any embellished reason for doing what they do, and the narrative never gives the audience a reason to root for the mob and their efforts.

Furthermore, even though the last film makes it clear that Michael’s murder spree in 1978 isn’t as serious a sequence of violence as status quo events (ex: modern shootings), Kills expects the audience to now believe that there are throngs of people around who are as upset and devastated about the spree as Laurie. This insinuation not only undermines the contextual work of the last film but also moots Laurie’s unique connection to the situation. If everyone is as obsessed about the event as her, then the last film would not have happened as it did, but Kills requires this to be true in order to ramp up to the ham-fisted themes and set-pieces that it so desperately wants to present as evidence of its artistic depth.

It’s evidence that the film wants to serve as a moral warning against succumbing to mob violence; don’t pursue uncontrolled violence lest you become a monster yourself. However, the story presents no alternative to the problems mob violence seeks to resolve, especially within its own context. When a police officer talks about how they didn’t want to shoot Michael once apprehended due to respect for shared human empathy and respect for the law, it seems obvious that, without context, the audience should be in favor of such a view. Officers killing unarmed and captured enemies should not be encouraged. But because we know Michael is a brutal murderer, a point the film gleefully reminds us of as he mutilates teenagers, couples, and the elderly galore, the message of restraint and respect for rule of law becomes much more confusing, especially when the narrative constantly demonstrates just how inept the law is at dealing with such events. If monsters are bad and the law is unable to stop them, chastising mob violence and condemning it in such a moralistic fashion muddies the discourse surrounding the issue.

The point also fails to make any resounding impact given that the film is a CELEBRATION of violence. It’s hard for the consequences of mob violence to linger in one’s mind in thought-provoking fashion when the camera treats this violence no differently than it does Michael’s carnage tour. If we’re supposed to marvel and cheer at the effective, technical execution of the latter, it becomes difficult to explain why the audience shouldn’t cheer for the former, especially when both are treated in the same manner: on-display gore for the audience to gawk at.

As a result, even though Halloween Kills share many of the same qualities as the early movies in the Friday the 13th franchise, namely disposable characters and focus on brutal set-pieces at the cost of narrative or thematic depth, it never reaches near the same levels of entertainment because it takes it forces its subject matter to be treated with a undeserved gravity that makes the overall experience uneven and tepid. Despite boasting Carpenter’s excellent score, slicker moment of gore, and a more robust production than many of the Friday films, Kills inhibits enjoyment by trying to tie the gratuitous and over-the-top violence to more severe and intricate themes.

With no one to cheer for and no hefty ideas to mull about on, it’s hard to recommend Halloween Kills to anyone but ardent fans of the franchise, good and bad, and gore hounds looking for mean-spirited slayings. The story is confused and doesn’t know if it wants to be a serious contemplation on evil or a carnage candy exhibition; consequently this identity-crisis permeates and undermines the film at critical junctures, leading little to offer. I can only hope that the follow-up, Halloween Ends, wraps things up nicely, but with how disappointing Kills ended up being, I’m not holding my breath.

REPORT CARD

TLDR	Halloween Kills is a sorely lacking sequel that not only squanders all good will engendered by director David Gordon Green’s previous film Halloween but also fully drops the ball for the upcoming finale, Halloween Ends. The film wants to be both a blood-bath and a piece with heart, but it fails to do either effectively because it spends no time setting up its characters or its story beats for meaningful success. Only ardent franchise fans and lovers of gore should check this one out.
Rating	4.8/10
Grade	F

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2020s, 2021, body horror, Drama, Grade, Horror, mystery, Past, Review, review-movie, S, science fiction horror, Thriller, Year

Film Review: Titane – 2021

October 13, 2021 The Critic 4 Comments

Director(s)	Julia Ducournau
Principal Cast	Agathe Rousselle as Alexia/Adrien Vincent Lindon as Vincent
Release Date	2021
Language(s)	French
Running Time	108 minutes
Report Card	Click to go to Review TLDR/Summary

The camera crawls over the internal workings of a car engine, jumping from one section to another, canvassing each in sensuous manner. Country music strings can be heard intermingled with the mechanical noises of the engine proper. Eventually, the film cuts inside of the car; now the engine’s rumbles are replicated by a young girl, Alexia, who delights in her loud and boisterous emulation much to the chagrin of her father who turns up the country music louder and louder as a response.

Upset with her father’s refusal to be her plaything, Alexia starts to repeatedly kick his chair before then taking off her seatbelt to presumably cause more havoc. Her father immediately turns back to yell at her and ends up losing control. Crash. She flies and suffers a head wound. Disfiguration. At the hospital, her head is outfitted with a titanium plate. Transformation. Titane is here. Metal has become flesh. Alexia has been reborn as cyborg proper, a child of metal. Far from just emulating its hums, she now is partly composed of it.

After the procedure, Alexia ignores her father and goes out to the car. Due to her crash, one would expect some kind of traumatic response, but Alexia goes to kiss the vehicle, showering it with a kind of love that seems all the more absurd given her seeming lack of feeling to her parents. Her kinship is with the world of metal and not with the world of humanity; metal becomes more skin than skin itself – a reorientation towards flesh. Just like Raw, director Julia Ducournau is most interested in breaking down the boundaries of where flesh stops being banal and starts being something worth protecting. Instead of utilizing cannibalism as the means of navigating the contours of what renders flesh valuable, she uses Alexia’s fetishistic relationship to metal.

Jump to the future. Country strings are replaced by The Kills’ “Doing It To Death” – a sign of things to come. An older adult Alexia (Agathe Rousselle) struts confidently through an underground car facility. Cinematographer Ruben Impens captures her movements in a smooth tracking shot that never breaks, gliding through a erotic gallery of bodies moving, women dancing evocatively over the hoods of cars as customers wait and watch, before finally revealing Alexia as one of these women. Unlike Raw’s gorgeous one-shot tracking shot of a rave scene meant to demonstrate it’s main characters disorientation, Titane’s introductory one-shot highlights its protagonists wholehearted embrace of an sensual and no-bars lifestyle. Far from learning discipline from her car crash, Alexia has only become more emblazoned; it’s no coincidence that car she dances on top is painted with flames. She’s an unrestrained fire that seems hellbent on “doing it to death”.

She leaves the show but is accosted on the way to her car by a fan who gives chase to her. The situation is clearly uncomfortable; the nature of his approach is downright predatory and his actions afterwards, including a non-consensual kiss, make it clear that Alexia can’t easily get away from him. Curiously, she leans in to him and begins kissing him more passionately, seemingly rewarding his unwarranted advances with tacit approval. However, this clearly is demonstrated to be far from the case as she quickly removes a long, pointed, hairpin and quickly stabs the unsuspecting fan through his ear, killing him in brutal fashion. The point of injury is near the same point of her own titanium implant – the site of which is still fleshy and observable. In her own way, she has rendered unto her attacker a similar injury – a ritual reenacting her own trauma.

Once home, she takes a shower and attempts to wash away the events of the night. But as soon as she steps out of the shower, the walls and floors start to rumble and shake. A mirror against the wall reflecting Alexia shakes and threatens to come off. Alexia opens the door to discover the source of the noise and realizes that the rumbles are coming from her flaming car. It’s calling to her, beckoning her forward. She answers its calls and gets into the vehicle. Ducournau pushes it to 11 at this point and gives the audience a small taste of what’s to come, as it is at this point Alexia begins to have passionate sexual relations with the car, moaning and rejoicing in the vehicle as she would any other lover. The scene cuts from Alexia writhing in ecstasy within the metal cocoon to shots of the car buckling up and down, shaking all around, confirming its status as fully alive.

Consequently, the experience pushes Alexia to embrace her relationship with metal qua flesh in more radical fashion. It’s revealed that far from considering metal superior, she considers it the only flesh worth protecting. Far from being a chance murder, it turns out that the ear-impaled fan is only one of Alexia’s many victims; she’s a mass murderer of sorts and kills people as easily as people eat their meals. Human flesh isn’t sacred or relevant to her; she has no reason to love it and treats it as nothing more than a nuisance. Eventually, things catch up and she’s forced to abandon her home, her parents, and occupation. Made to carve out a new station in life, Alexia proceeds through an entanglement of metal and skin in an attempt to carve out a orientation towards the flesh, one predicated on love.

Like Raw, Titane features gory set-pieces tied to the themes of the story, impeccable and uncomfortable sound design that emphasizes squelching, and a host of perverse orientations towards the flesh. However, unlike Raw, which features a mainly straight-forward, albeit textured, story, Titane is far more ambitious in the scope of its themes and the surreal, almost dream-like way its narrative proceeds, choosing to show character interactions and reactions instead of explaining them or having anyone mention them explicitly. Ducournau is clearly in her element here and deftly weaves ideas about gender expectations against Alexia’s ongoing relationships with flesh, demonstrating that what conditions and furnishes meaning is not blood or similarity, but an ability to feel love. Form matters less than content, a notion that’s stretched to its limits as Alexia navigates the borders of both gender and humanity in an attempt to find meaning in her life.

Her journey and it’s development are made all the more obvious by the no-holds barred fashion in which Ducournau captures the macabre, often times showing the bloody in a nonchalant and apathetic fashion thereby giving brutal murder sequence s a sick comedic undertone that less squeamish viewers will enjoy. Murder stops being the focus and its purpose becomes the point of focus, as Alexia’s murderous drives change form as she considers what makes flesh normatively valuable. Agathe Rousselle makes these moments of transformation palpable, rendering a variety of expressions from tired, but otherwise unfazed to broken in and devastated. It’s no small feat that she gets the viewer to invest in and root for a serial murderer whether they think she’s going to change her lifestyle or not.

Thus, far from just being a set of gore-pieces held together by indecipherable plot threads, Titane is meticulous and precise, with even small details blowing up quietly in the background of the film as it goes on. At every point, Ducournau focuses on showing the way flesh, metal or human, engenders its own preservation via inculcating love in others, demonstrating that the connecting force between subjects/objects is not so much perceived sameness as the possibility for affection between them. Because of this, even the more outlandish plot elements make sense within the confines of the story even if the actual reasons behind them or the way they culminate aren’t completely known to the viewer. For those willing to spend the analyzing the parallels, Titane offers a gory story that not only manages to captivate from start to end but also manages to showcase the true powers of love.

REPORT CARD

TLDR	Though largely silent and visual, Titane, far from having too little to say, has a wide breadth of fleshy ideas it dives into and explores. The juxtaposition of human skin and metal along with idea of gender as a socially coded role gives Ducournau room to explore what renders flesh something worth caring about and protecting. Though more squeamish viewers might be put off, those looking for a film that invites the them to think and engage with them without giving all the answers will find more than their fair share’s worth in Titane.
Rating	10/10
Grade	S

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2010, 2010s, B+, Grade, Horror, mystery, Past, Review, review-movie, supernatural, Thriller, Year

Film Review: Insidious: Chapter 2 – 2013

October 9, 2021 The Critic Leave a comment

Director(s)	James Wan
Principal Cast	Patrick Wilson as Josh Lambert Rose Byrne as Renai Lambert Lin Shaye as Elise Rainier Ty Simpkins as Dalton Lambert Andrew Astor as Foster Lambert
Release Date	2013
Language(s)	English
Running Time	106 minutes
Report Card	Click to go Review TLDR/Summary

Note: This review contains spoilers for: Insidious.

Director James Wan’s sequel to Insidious opens in the past. A young Elise (Lindsay Seim) makes her initial visit to Lorraine (Jocelin Donahue) and Josh (Garrett Ryan) after being called as an additional line of help by her friend and fellow-psychic, Carl (Hank Harris ), who finds himself unable to deal with old woman spirit (Tom Fitzpatrick) haunting Josh. Elise hypnotizes Dalton to make him more suggestible and asks him to reveal information on the old woman. She searches the house in order to confront the malevolent entity. As the events of the night continue, Josh gets up and starts speaking to an entity who no one else can see, psychic gifts or otherwise. Josh leads the entity to a location in the house and points to the location at which point, due to his inexplicable behavior and the nature of the spirit, Elise recommends “sealing” his astral projection gifts away.

The bright red title card drops in as a sea of violent noises come to a crescendo. However, the malevolent color is displaced by a spectral blue that comes from the reveal of the “Chapter 2” in the title. A lantern similar to the ones used in the “further” goes across the title card, letting the viewer know that unlike the first film which had to tease the metaphysical, this film is more than ready to dive into supernatural hijinks.

Drawing to a close, the title sequence ends on a red door, and the camera glides through it and the dark void it opens to towards a faraway light in the distance. Eventually, the camera gets to the light, which turns out to be a lamp lighting a room where Renai (Rose Byrne) is being interrogated by a police officer over the death of Elise (Lin Shaye), an action which is revealed to the viewer at the end of Insidious as having been committed by a recently possessed Josh. Renai recalls finding Elise’s limp body and then finding the photograph of the old woman before running into an emotionally off Josh at the scene of the crime; her doubts were set then and have only continued to fester, but without definitive proof of her husband being possessed or just off, she has to learn to work with him . She confirms to the detective that she doesn’t think her husband is responsible for Elise’s death before going back home to continue dealing with the supernatural mess still wreaking havoc in the Lambert’s lives.

Chapter 2, as such, is split between telling two tales: the first follows the way the ‘Further’ intermingles and intervenes in the Lamberts life and the second explores the background of the spirit possessing Josh. While both stories inform and effect one another, the former is markedly more original and ambitious and gives the mechanics of the Insidious franchise a put-togetherness that other supernatural outings wish they could achieve. Comparatively, the latter story is contrived, not as tight, and plays like a series of lost opportunities, often settling for horror in the moment as opposed to building to larger moments of intense panic. While the nature of what’s revealed in this second narrative thread is “shocking” at a surface level, it does nothing to develop either the film’s themes or the themes of its prequel in nearly as effective a manner as the first narrative thread.

This first story takes the building blocks established in the first movie and expands on the metaphysical makeup of its supernatural domain: the ‘Further’, a place where circuits of desire are repeated while specters engage in the same acts over and over again in loop. This time the narrative focus is less on the domain itself and more on the the effects it has on the living world. It’s not the mechanics of the ‘Further’ which are explored as much as the way the domain intervenes in the world of the living, tying seemingly disparate moments together. Consequently, the film revels in building up scenes from one vantage point and then exploring them again from the other domain; the interplay between these jumps from the “real” world to the ‘Further’ and back again gives Wan an and scriptwriter Leigh Whannell more than enough space to explore creative spectral interplays.

Unfortunately, these mechanics are barely utilized to their fullest and are leveraged in service of the second story, which, while not being incompetently constructed, lacks the nuance or creativity of the first film. While the first story feels like an extension of the Lambert’s conflicts from the first film, the second story feels largely separated. The struggles depicted in the former have a texture and feeling because there’s a sense of empathy in the helplessness and nature of what’s going on, but the tribulations in the latter feel overly theatric and break the sense of immersion generated by the former. Realism takes a seat back to spectacle, and the themes get lost in translation, as the viewer focuses on terror for terrors sake as opposed to terror in serve of a larger thematic movement. As a result, visceral moments in the film shock when presented but don’t have the same staying power as the scenes from the initial Insidious which linger in the viewer’s memory long after.

This is a shame because the first story could have served as the basis for the investigation the second story ventured on if better attention was given to the nature of Josh’s possession. As a location, the ‘Further’ gives fertile ground to explore the way trauma unfurls. Like the first film demonstrates, spirits are trapped into cycles of repetition and are made to re-enact their trauma ad-infinitum. Seemingly unable to find peace, it seems that being a trapped within the ‘Further’ is a horrific fate that any entity would seek to escape, but the furthest the film goes towards exploring that idea, a great source of motivation which could have served as the basis of the second story’s mystery, is having a character mention the idea off-hand a few times. Instead of just saying it, the film could have built on this idea visually and tied it to the Lambert’s struggle to find a locus of healing and stability. Wan and his production team do a great job at evoking ethereal and inexplicable horror, but it feels like they barely scratched the surface of demonstrating the brutality of the material they’re working with, choosing instead to go for familiar and easy-to-explain over ambitious and potentially more confusing. For example, there’s a great set piece involving a host of covered bodies but by the end of the film the scene says very little besides “evil exists”. It’s just unsettling imagery that disturbs momentarily before being cast aside.

Thankfully, lack of memorable scares does not entail lack of memorable moments and Wan and Whannell still manage to leverage the better parts of the story to great effect, satisfyingly bringing the prequel’s story to a resolute close. There are a few hiccups getting to this ending, but eventually, when Chapter 2’s two story threads come together, the narrative proper is allowed to go full throttle towards an emotionally satisfying finish line that concludes (almost) all the relevant story threads on a nice ending point. While this sequel entry isn’t as strong a stand-alone as Wan’s initial foray in to the supernatural genre, it’s certainly a good enough follow-up that fans of the original should check it out. It does what all good sequels should attempt to do: extend the interesting ideas of the first movie without re-hashing them in boring fashion. Just because the film doesn’t elevate all the interesting ideas to their potential, it does more than enough to distinguish itself from and progress its prequel.

REPORT CARD

TLDR	Insidious: Chapter 2 is a film that serves up many of the same thrills of its prequel in terms of ambiance and technical construction, while bringing many plot threads to a neat and resolute end-point. While it settles for cheaper scares than its worldbuilding allows, thus squandering some of its potential, it delivers more than enough intrigue to keep fans of the original and those interested more broadly in supernatural horror and its related mechanics intrigued from start to finish. It may not nail all it’s beats, but it’s certainly a good deal more fun than many of its peers.
Rating	7.9/10
Grade	B

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2010s, 2013, Drama, gothic, Grade, Horror, mystery, Past, psychological, Review, review-movie, S, Thriller, Year

Film Review: Stoker – 2013

October 5, 2021 The Critic Leave a comment

Director(s)	Park Chan-wook
Principal Cast	Mia Wasikowska as India Stoker Matthew Goode as Charlie Stoker Nicole Kidman as Evelyn Stoker Dermot Mulroney as Richard Stoker
Release Date	2013
Language(s)	English
Running Time	99 minutes
Report Card	Click to go to Review TLDR/Summary

India (Mia Wasikowska) walks across the street as the frame freezes. Her actor’s name appears across from her.

“My ears hear what other cannot. Small, faraway things people cannot normally see are visible to me. These senses are the fruits of a lifetime of longing. Longing to be rescued. To be completed. Just as the skirt needs the wind to billow…I’m not formed by things that are of myself alone. I wear my father’s belt tied around my mother’s blouse. And shoes which are from my uncle. This is me. Just as a flower does not choose its color…we are not responsible for what we have come to be. Only once you realize this do you become free. And to become adult, is to become free.”

These words are whispered by our protagonist, India (Mia Wasikowska) in a part opening montage and part intro credit sequence that opens on her walking away from a sports car and police car across the street to a green pasture. Her actress’s name, Mia Wasikowski appears on the screen right next to her as the frame freezes momentarily – the present fading into the past. Time flows again and she walks over the name, subsuming it. She stands over the pasture and looks over it, as the wind blows her skirt and the long grass around her. Another cast member’s name appears in the enclosing of her skirt as the frame freezes again. Once again, the present “intervenes” and the freeze stops while the name recedes into the invisible abyss it came from. This pattern continues to repeat before settling on a white flower spattered in red.

This image is unsettling because at this point in the monologue, India directly refers to how a flower doesn’t choose its colors, in the same way as people do not choose the contingent events that shape up their lives up to that moment. The camera cuts to an image of her face smiling as her whispered speech ends on her explaining that realizing this truth is to become adult, thereby becoming free. The frame freezes one last time as her smiling face dissolves to another shot of a younger her running through another field of green; the sounds of wind and rustling fabrics and grass give way to composer Clint Manwell’s fairy-tale like score which evokes feelings of wonder and propulsive change.

India (Mia Wasikowska) feels an injury on her foot.

Just like her “modern” counterpart, this younger India is also followed by the opening credits which appear in the environment around her. She pays them no mind; instead, she takes her shoes off upon noticing a callous and sits next to a gray statue who serves as a mirror image to her. Her wound bursts with clear pus after she pops it, bursting through the soundscape momentarily, before disappearing again. Without a moment wasted, India continues a search, canvassing multiple locations surrounding her expansive residence for “something.” Finally, she climbs up a tree and finds a Birthday present in a box wrapped with yellow ribbons.

Upon finding her mystery item, the film cuts to India’s birthday cake; the propulsive score fades away as the sounds of sirens and flames take charge – a sharp contrast to the scene in question. The camera pushes in on the cake and then rises above it before descending. Now covered in a glass container, the cake is unable to sustain its flames which dissipate into wisps of smoke as a phone starts to ring. A woman screams, “Richard. No!” as the glass container dissolves into the film’s title card proper, which is etched out by an invisible pen and ink.

The camera lingers on both Evelyn’s and India’s shooes. One wears heels while the other wears saddle shoes, a mark of adulthood and childhood respectively.

A preacher’s voice can be heard and it’s revealed that Richard, India’s father, has died. Thus, her 18th birthday, the threshold marking her “birth” as an adult, is marked by the loss of a parent, a figure meant to guide her on that path. Her mother, Evelyn, and her sit at the funeral, both distraught in their own ways. India is stoic and steely while her mother is visibly puffy and devastated. The camera goes to the pair’s feet momentarily; Evelyn is wearing heels while India is wearing saddle shoes. However, India notices a disturbance – a gaze taking notice of her. She turns her head to the side and notices a figure in the distance, a man staring down at her from above the hillocks she previously ran through.

India plays the piano as a spider crawls towards her.

The funeral service proper ends, but the preacher’s sermon continues playing in the soundscape of India’s mind. She tries to play piano while a spider crawls towards her feet. However, her attempts at distracting herself are interrupted by her mother, whose figure makes its presence known on the mirror above her. As Evelyn implores India to help with the event’s cooking, the latter stares her down with a kind of disdain. Even after turning to face Evelyn, as opposed to facing her mirror image, India refuses to say anything. Evelyn exasperatedly pushes her point while the aforementioned spider skirts up the grieving daughter’s leg.

India (Mia Wasikowska) sits in the kitchen to help make deviled eggs.

However, India does acquiesce to her mother’s demands and goes to the kitchen to help make deviled eggs. She overhears a pair of maids gossiping about the state of her family’s affairs. These unwanted thoughts her, so she starts to roll an egg, cracking it slowly. Outside noise fades out as the sound of the eggs breaking overwhelms the ears, until finally, Mrs. McGarrick (Phyllis Somerville), the Stoker’s head caretaker, silences the pair and goes to inquire into India’s state of mind. The two remnisce on their shared past with deviled eggs and it becomes clear that unlike, Evelyn, India sees the elderly caretaker as a surrogate-mother of sorts. Mrs. McGarrick takes out flowers which are tied with a yellow ribbon and asks India if she found her birthday present yet. India ties the color of the ribbon on the flower to the color of the ribbon on the box from her initial adventure and reveals she found a key in the box before also expressing surprise at the revelation that Mrs.McGarrick is tied to her yearly birthday presents, shoes, as opposed to her deceased father like she initially thought.

She leaves the kitchen momentarily and sees her mother talking to the stranger who gazed upon the mother-daughter duo earlier at the funeral. Her mother sees India and calls out to her, introducing the stranger as Roger’s brother, Charlie – a stranger turned into long lost uncle. The revelation deeply upsets India who immediately walks back into the kitchen. Her pale expression invites concern from Mrs.McGarrick who inquiries into what’s wrong. India responds honestly: “Yes. My father is dead”.

India (Mia Wasikowska) sleeps in her bed dejected.

As if in response to her dejection, the film cuts to a fully lethargic India. The camera tracks to the right from India’s face to a pair of shoes, like the ones she’s worn previously. This pair of shoes dissolves into another which dissolves into another and so on, each pair smaller than the one that came before it. Eventually, the dissolving shoes come to a small pair, fit for a toddler, before the camera tracks right back to India’s face. The camera steps back and reveals that India is laying in a circle of 16 pairs of shoes; each pair from the montage lies around her, in a displaced oval like shape, ranging from oldest to newest pair. Her “current” 17th pair, lies on the floor next to the bed; one pair for every birthday except for the most current birthday – the threshold to becoming an adult.

It’s not just that the 18th pair, the guide to walking the path to adulthood, is missing. India’s turmoil stems from the double mystery of who was fully responsible for her previous 17 pairs of shoes. Up to the moment of Mrs.McGarricks’ reveal, India has walked in her “father’s” footsteps. With the identity of the gift-giver stripped away, the path which has defined her so long as a subject is now that has to be re-treat, rediscovered. The words from the opening monologue ring more resounding here: “I’m not formed by things that are of myself alone “.

The montage which initially presented itself as a series of discrete images, moments bleeding into one another, turns out to be multiple sections of the same image. Far from being from different times, the shoes exist in the same “present” moment with India. However, the montage of them dissolving demonstrates the logic of how moments are just accumulations of everything that came before. Each “shoe” is an epoch that can now be re-cast; a past that can open the doors to new futures.

Evelyn (Nicole Kidman) comments that India and Richard’s hunting trophies are wastes of life but Charlie seems to appreciate the work the father-daughter duo did.

Meanwhile, Evelyn and Charlie talk about India and Richard’s close-knit relationship, one formed primarily around hunting birds. Evelyn bemoans the act as senseless violence, but Charlie shows great respect for the duo’s craft. He picks up one of their winged trophies and reveals an an egg underneath. The deviled eggs which start as one of India’s favorite treats become an egg which serves as a remainder of her relationship with her father which then dissolves into her eye itself. Eggs are treats are trophies are eyes. A series of poetic connections between the images are formed.

Eggs are white on the outside and yellow on the inside. Eggs, at least the ones shown in the film, are related to birds. In other circumstances, the eggs would break apart to allow new life to come out – the birth of something new. This is a story of a girl becoming a woman, on the threshold of adulthood, looking for a path to walk on as influences all around her permeate her crumbling shell.

India walks around the house and the whispers about her family’s affairs continue. In hushed tones, adults abound talk about her family; their words enter her mental landscape constantly. She notices Charlie talking to a seemingly distraught Mrs. McGarrick, but just as she sensed her Uncle Charlie earlier during the funeral, her uncle senses her gaze and turns to meet it. However, India immediately averts the battle of gazes and escapes. Before Charlie can catch up to her, she runs out of a side entrance of her expansive manor. The camera track India while she roams the outside of the house in the background of the frame; in the foreground, Charlie is being occupied by Evelyn.

However, this turns out to be far from the case as India, initially confident upon entering her abode from the front, is shocked when Charlie calls to her from at the top of the master staircase. Just like the first time she saw him, he reigns above her. He coyly asks her if she wants to know why she feels she’s at a disadvantage, both announcing his take on the duo’s power relation and also preferring an analysis of her own psyche; this is all done despite the fact, as India rightly retorts, that she was unaware of his existence till the day. He ignores her comment and asserts the real reason is because she’s standing below him. The subtext of the stairs is thus brought to the level of text and the viewer is made aware of both the importance of height and presence of stairs as a motif representing control.

In response to his claim, India slowly climbs up the staircase. The camera pushes in through a doorway, signifying the start of the confrontation between uncle and niece, showing India alone, rising to meet Charlie, who slowly enters the frame. She gets to the top of the stairs and stares her newly found family member down, asserting her right to stand as equal to him. She quite literally rises to the challenge.

Upon giving him a long look, she remarks that he looks remarkably like her father. Suddenly, her confused emotional state at his presence gains additional texture. Her father, the one who guided her and took her hunting, not only turns out to not be the one setting her path via the shoes she walks in but has returned, so to speak, in the form of a part hidden relation, part quasi-doppelgänger. Her confrontation with Charlie, is then, the first step she has to take to find herself.

Charlie responds to her comparison with an expression of sympathy towards her loss. A strange response which she notices and calls out, reminding her uncle that the loss is shared among them. Once again, he ignores her observation and tells her that he’s planning on staying with her and her mother for the foreseeable future. He makes it clear that he’s gotten her mother on board but tells India that he wants her approval as well because it’s “important” to him. Thus, the stage for Stoker is set and the battle for power can truly commence.

Given the title, Stoker, a viewer with context would think of Bram Stoker and his work in gothic horror. On that level, Stoker works. All the ingredients for gothic feeling are present: there’s a death encased in mystery, a hidden relative that shows up, and troubled familial relations that bubble up and sublimate in obscene fashion. However, as the first 13 minutes above demonstrate, the film operates closer to the psychoanalytic thrillers of Alfred Hitchcock: the bodies of birds appear like in Psycho, the game of gazes is played like in Vertigo, and at the most obvious level, the basic story beats of Hitchock’s film noir, Shadow of a Doubt, serve as Stoker’s jumping off point. Both stories feature an uncle named Charlie, who shares a special bond with his niece and who is covered in a veil of mystery. Likewise, both stories follow a niece as she struggles against penetrating the veil her uncle puts up. Stoker even goes so far as to replicate Shadow of a Doubt’s use of the staircase as the scene of battle between uncle and niece along with its presence as a motif.

But, unlike Hitchcock’s film which uses the relationship between the uncle and niece to reveal the duplicitous nature of the social order and the underpinnings of the idyllic American fantasy, Stoker uses the relationship to examine the way personal identity is generated and navigated. In other words, one film is aimed at a macro-level and the other at the micro-level. In this way, Stoker is able to traverse a whole different set of ideas from the vantage point of a coming-of-age horror.

Furthermore, though the story and narrative progression may be Hitchcock inspired, the editing, sensuality, and painterly mise-en-scène are all in line with director Park Chan-Wook’s style as an auteur. His stylistic flourishes here give the film it’s poetic sensibilities because he elects to show most of the story rather than tell it. On top of layering motifs in a more traditional sense, he constantly uses the nature of his edits – both sequencing and the edit itself – to suggest connections between seemingly disparate ideas. Like the egg becoming the eye, “apparent” match-cuts between objects of similar sizes and shapes along with dissolves between images are used to demonstrate the state of India’s psychic journey and how she’s processing the story as it goes along. As she makes connections, the viewer can piece together both the narrative and what it means to her own journey.

That being said, the nature of this journey is constantly up for re-interpretation. Pivotal scenes aren’t cut chronologically but are cut in the order India is making sense of them and rendering them coherent from her own vantage point. This gives seemingly obvious moments, a palpable level of uncertainty, because the nature of what the moment is supposed to demonstrate is indeterminate until the very end of that movement, but because movements fade into one another and are constantly recalled, every sequence gains a newfound freedom in how it’s used in the present to open up future possibilities. Consequently, the film feels dynamic even as moments repeat, because those moments come to mean something new.

Even if all the moving parts don’t make sense, Chan-wook’s construction of the film ensures the journey can be felt even if not fully understood. He achieves this feeling of consistency via in how he utilizes the architecture of the house to reflect the ebb and flow of power and also his attention towards maintaining a consistent color palette. While the latter has been mentioned above, the former hasn’t been given it’s due. At a basic level, the exterior of the house is white like the color of an egg’s shell. The green surrounding the house in the form of vegetation makes its way in the walls of the “public” spaces of the house, like the dining room. India is constantly in the color yellow’s proximity. Likewise, her mother is always in red’s presence. By establishing the colors early on and constantly repeating them in and out of the house, Chan-wook is able to get the audience to think about the meaning of them in the background of their minds. As a result, the colors become affectively charged which is why they can be felt even if their presence isn’t consciously noted. Chan-wook is weaving poetic patterns that operate on a level that appears like it’s just style, but is in style employed in lieu of accentuating the substance.

In light of this, it’s surprising to see that critical consensus is so harsh on the film, with many critics chastising the film for being style over substance. It’d be one thing if the film gallivanted from scene to scene for shock value; with violent masterpieces like Oldboy in Chan-wook’s filmography, it would be easy for him to just sink to spectacle. But Stoker is less focused on the spectacle than the journey itself. It’s filmed in a delicate and sensual way because unlike many of his previous excursions, Stoker is a women-led character study; that too, it’s a women led horror movie where the protagonist, far from being victimized, is allowed to find herself in the most emphatic fashion, something which would certainly not be possible if there was no substance beneath the film’s stylistic maneuverings.

This oddity is even more inexplicable given that, in many ways, Stoker feels like a dress rehearsal for The Handmaiden, Park Chan-wook’s 2016 erotic thriller, considered by many, including myself, to be the director’s best work. Both film’s share a woman lead, explore relationships between women, and focus more on the unseen gazes of characters than any overt physical action. They both also showcase incredibly sensual moments of eroticism in unsuspecting fashion, demonstrating the way desire codes even the otherwise seemingly ordinary. Furthermore, while Stoker is an homage and twist on Shadow of a Doubt, The Handmaiden, feels like something similar in relation to Vertigo, at least from my view.

Perhaps the reason for Stoker’s undeserved treatment lies in its opacity. Though, the feeling of the film is something a viewer can take away from a viewing, the lack of direct explanation regarding some of the more overt symbols, like the spider, might put off those looking for a story that provides all the answers. However, it is precisely because the explanations are withheld, that the film opens up interpretative possibility and can evoke the feeling of poetry as opposed to pretentious philosophizing. It’s for that reason that Stoker is best reserved for those viewers who relish engaging with a film, whether that be mulling over it afterwards or playing it back it back to confirm a hint about a theory. It’s a film that rewards multiple viewings and interpretations of the events depicted. At the brisk rate of 99 minutes, Stoker would already be worth seeing for its visual splendor alone. Few films have this much fun presenting images in such confident fashion. However, given the depth Chan-wook manages to pack behind each and every movement, big or small, the film is something that any cinephile should give a watch.

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TLDR	Stoker is a film about whispers, glances, stolen gazes, and strategies for getting one’s way. The story uses Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt as a jumping off point to explore the psychological journey of a young woman, India, who is forced to find herself after the death of her father and the mysterious emergence of her uncle. Her journey is one that fluctuates from romance to horror to thriller back again all while remaining couched in psychoanalytic motifs and relationships that give each and every moment a host of meanings. While fans of director Park Chan-wook’s other works should definitely seek out this underrated part of his filmography, I’d recommend Stoker to any viewer who enjoys the experience of being washed over by a film and trying to piece it together afterwards. For the viewer who enjoys the journey even if the destination is unclear, Stoker offers a key to a box waiting to be unlocked.
Rating	10/10
Grade	S

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