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Harbor Frights

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Hope

by Hope Madden

When I learned that Na Hong-jin, the filmmaker behind 2016’s The Wailing and 2008’s The Chaser, was releasing a creature feature this year called Hope, well, I was as on board as a person can be.

The writer/director has an instinct for dumbass heroes, beleaguered and in-over-their-heads, and mysteries that are too big for them to solve. His shot making is breathtaking, often finding an almost obscene beauty in the most disturbing of images. And the humor in his films is so inappropriate given the gravity of the subject that it can’t help but be appealing.

And now a creature feature? We haven’t had a great Korean creature feature since Bong Joon Ho’s 2006 masterpiece The Host. Two decades! And for the first hour or so, Hope delivers a breakneck and breathless bit of horror.

Hwang Jung-min is the police chief of Hope Harbor, a tiny South Korean harbor town in the demilitarized zone just this side of North Korea. Chief carries himself with a little swagger, wears fancy Western boots and shades, and has no idea what to do when some hunters report an ox that looks to have been ripped apart by a tiger.

From that moment of revelation, what Na crafts is the most precise and astonishing chaos. The movement of the camera, what we see and what we do not, what we hear without seeing, the scale and the intimacy and the carnage is magnificent. Unheard of. Deeply amazing.

And within that pandemonium, characters emerge. They are funny, cowardly, fearless, dim-witted—sometimes all of those adjectives at different moments. The chemistry among castmates is fresh and electric, but you know you’re waiting for something more. Depth, a backstory, a twist. You know it’s coming.

With the first good look at the beast, the wheels begin to come off this joy ride. And as Na lets you take a breath between acts, complications pile up, genres switch up, and CGI continues to disappoint.

The actors never do. Zo In-sung is a force of nature in this film, and Hoyeon oscillates between sweetheart and badass depending on the needs of the scene. But their film, this breathtaking creature feature, feels like it’s bled into an entirely other movie. One more ponderous and pretentious and weighed down with CGI.

Hope is an impressive piece of filmmaking no matter its end result, but it’s fully an hour too long and that hour belongs to some separate, other movie, which keeps the movie I loved so much from a satisfying conclusion.

 

New In Theaters

We Were On a Break!

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The Sun Never Sets

by George Wolf

Buried deep in the guts of The Sun Never Sets is a movie we’ve seen plenty of times. It’s that amusing, sometimes zany rom-com where two impossibly attractive people slowly find their way to each to other. We know they’ll be together, it’s just a question of how enjoyable the journey will be.

And that can be a perfectly fine, easily forgettable time at the movies.

Joe Swanberg doesn’t make those movies. His stories are lived-in slices of humanity, often filled with easygoing humor, stellar performances and easily relatable characters who must navigate compelling pushes and pulls.

The Sun Never Sets has all of that, and it may be his finest film to date.

Dakota Fanning is simply fantastic as Wendy, a construction worker in Alaska whose two-year relationship with Jack (Jake Johnson, terrific) is suddenly at a serious crossroads. Jack is an older, divorced dad with two kids, and isn’t really interested in adding more wives or children.

He’s worried that Wendy will resent these choices as the years go by, so he insists she take a few months away from him, to “see what’s out there” and decide if she really wants Jack for the long haul.

Reluctantly, she takes that break, and ends up meeting her bad boy ex, Chuck (Cory Michael Smith, Saturday Night‘s Chevy Chase) who’s back in town as a charter pilot for tourists. Sparks are reignited.

And suddenly, Jack wants the break to be over. Imagine that.

Swanberg, doing triple duty as writer/director/editor, again sets a casual pace filled with authentic dialog that’s always propelled by a lovely, improvisational feel. The entire ensemble (also featuring Debby Ryan and Karley Sciortino) shines, each actor carving distinctly human characters amid oversized, Alaska-worthy fashions, a robust adult dating climate and the smell of salmon.

The Sun Never Sets is just a warm, funny, frisky delight. It’s a film that makes you feel you just hit town and are instantly accepted into a circle of friends involved in a juicy love triangle. You’ll get a kick out of where they take you, and where Swanberg leaves you.

Because the finale is something you won’t be expecting, even though you’ll leave the theater thinking you should have seen it coming early on.

Either way, you’ll probably be smiling.

The Screening Room

Screening Room: Coyote vs. Acme, The Dog Stars, It Ends, Buddy & More

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Hope & George review this week’s new releases: Coyote vs. Acme, The Dog Stars, It Ends, Buddy, The Whisper Man, Colony, Boorman and the Devil, The Snare, and The Deb.

New In Theaters

Inane Blacktop

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Idiots

by Matt Weiner

It took many years and a last-minute safe-for-work title change for Idiots to reach screens. Writer-director Macon Blair, always a welcome presence in front of the camera, has talked openly about the decade-plus and numerous cast changes to get his latest feature made.

That’s a lot of pressure for an antagonistic road comedy that follows two in-over-their-heads contractors who transport troubled teens to rehab centers. Davis (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) is well-meaning and religious, with a genuine empathy for his passengers. Mark (Dave Franco), on the other hand, seems more likely to be the one in the backseat being escorted.

The pair gives the impression they would be outmatched in the best of circumstances, let alone trying to handle their latest charge. Sheridan Kimberley (Mason Thames) is a sociopathic son of hands-off billionaires eager to get him out of sight, out of mind, and in compliance with the latest legal deal to keep him out of prison.

Sheridan plots to turn Mark and Davis against each other and escape their custody, which sends the pair on a road trip from hell that ends up roping in a vengeful sex worker (Kiernan Shipka), celebrity-worshiping sycophants and a band of Soundcloud-rapping bounty hunters/kidnappers whose incompetence rivals only Mark and Davis.

For a crass hard-R comedy, there’s sadly only one scene that comes close to the gross goo-fest to be had in Blair’s more focused and self-assured Toxic Avenger remake. Idiots does the best it can do with the low budget, but more physical comedy would’ve helped distract from all the implausible character decisions and their incongruent philosophizing.

Idiots counts Danny McBride, Jody Hill and David Gordon Green among its executive producers. Whether or not they played a direct hand in day-to-day production, the comic sensibilities of the HBO mainstays behind shows like Vice Principals and Righteous Gemstones are firmly part of the film’s DNA. Blair’s story takes major tonal swings for a grossout comedy with few redeeming characters. Or any redemption at all. This works for lovable losers like McBride’s Kenny Powers or Seth Rogen and the elder Franco brother in Pineapple Express. It’s a difficult register to pull off across a feature-length comedy, though, and Blair’s uneven script doesn’t pick up the slack consistently enough. Still, though there’s something to be said for a comedy willing to be this nihilistic and … well, idiotic.

Outtakes

Coming Outback

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The Deb

by Rachel Willis

After pulling a feminist-themed stunt at school, Maeve (Charlotte MacInnes) is banned to the bush; more specifically, the small town of Dunburn where her cousin Taylah (Natalie Abbott) lives in Rebel Wilson’s directorial debut, The Deb.

Maeve arrives in town to find all Taylah wants from life is to make a splash at the upcoming debutant event. Nothing is more archaic to Maeve than this spectacle of femininity and purity.

The wants of both girls are relayed through song, and while each song is catchy, they are also uninspired. In fact, none of the songs in the movie stand out nor do any of the choreographed dance numbers that give us time to meet the people of Dunburn. They are unnecessary filler in an otherwise absorbing story.

Dunburn’s resident mean girl Annabelle (Stevie Jean) and her fellow mean girls (The Pixie Cups) are fun in a catty sort of way as they do their best to make Taylah’s life hell.

Rebel Wilson co-stars as Annabell’s mother. Her character is a combination of Amy Poehler’s Mean Girls cool mom, and a stereotypical parent-manager who tries to bully her kid toward superstardom.

As Maeve adjust to life in Dunburn, she harshly judges Taylah and everyone in the bush for their behavior, their quaintness, their dreams and desires. She is as cruel in her own way to Taylah as the Pixie Cups. Though Maeve aspires to feminist equality and the end of the patriarchy, she doesn’t recognize her own role in perpetrating classist and patriarchal beliefs.

But the film isn’t too interested in taking a deep dive into the problems Maeve seeks to address with her stunts and TikTok videos. Instead, the audience is treated to a fun musical that has a simple lesson or two for the mean girls of the world.  

Shudder Premiere

In Summer, Meanwhile Back

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Penny Lane Is Dead

by Hope Madden

It’s 1986 in Australia. Three brand new high school graduates plan to spend the night at Penny Lane’s (Bailey Spalding) grandparents’ empty lake house. Their moms drop them off, and the girls sneak a cigarette and pop down to the liquor store. Those crazies!

But Penny’s disturbed cousin Kat (Sophia Wright-Mendelsohn) arrives uninvited with cupcakes so loaded with drugs that Penny passes out. So, Penny’s besties Toni (Tahlee Fereday) and Amy (Alexandra Jensen) throw Kat out.

This seems a fine plan until Kat calls her 40-year-old ex-con boyfriend to pick her up and he shows up with two other felonious pals, all of them with bad intentions.

Writer/director Mia Kate Russell’s feature debut is a weird mix of gritty Ozploitation horror and 80s comedy. The film is at its best when she exhibits her keen instincts for practical gore. Those feet!

But long before things get bloody, the anxiety Russell and her ensemble generate inside the humble little beach house is impressive.

Home invasion horror often delivers a particularly uncomfortable tension, and Russell comes close to Last House on the Left vibes. Ben O’Toole is particularly effective as Angus, a vainglorious low-rent thug delighted to partake in bloody debauchery.  

And Penny Lane Is Dead definitely gets bloody. But the violence is of a type that doesn’t fit well with the film’s more broadly brushed humor. The tonal issues are anchored in Wright-Mendelsohn’s character.

The performance itself is very impressive, almost Fairuza Balk a la The Craft at times. Kat, in horror movies actualy made in the 80s, would have been the tragic but cool outsider—Angela from Night of the Demons, Trash from Return of the Living Dead. Sure, she’s chaos walking and her poor decisions bring destruction, but you don’t hate her.

Russell sidesteps that cliché in favor of the unspeakable: the popular girl who looks like a Barbie really is the hero and the messed-up Goth chick really is evil. And for a time, Wright-Mendelsohn (Ben’s daughter) carves out a madness that is deeply unsettling and very impressive.

But Act 3 becomes “pile on the mean girl” and Kat becomes a near-supernatural villain when, honestly, it’s the three men who deserved this level of comeuppance. The vitriol seems misdirected, and paired with a poorly handled sexual assault storyline, Penny Lane Is Dead can’t get out of its own way.

It’s too bad, because there was something  here, something unnerving and unwholesome.

Outtakes

What the Hell?

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Boorman and the Devil

by George Wolf

There was a new list floating around social media this week, and it ranked the 25 all-time worst movie sequels. 1977’s Exorcist II: The Heretic was nowhere to be found. That will probably surprise a bunch of people, including some that are part of Boorman and the Devil, a fascinating look behind one of the most infamous productions in film history.

John Boorman was fresh off of an Oscar nomination for Deliverance when he accepted the gig to follow up the phenomenon that was The Exorcist. Looking back, the now 92 year-old Boorman realizes Stanley Kubrick was correct when he warned the only way to follow Friedkin’s classic was to bring even more shock value.

Boorman chose an approach that focused on light over dark. Plus “the Synchronizer,” a tap-dancing Linda Blair and James Earl Jones in a locust getup.

It was a complete disaster. But director David Kittredge’s look back is so captivating, the urge to give The Heretic another look will be strong.

Boorman’s candor about the pain of failure is refreshingly honest, and the way that Kittredge surrounds it with insightful commentary from filmmakers such as Karyn Kusama, Mike Flanagan and Joe Dante creates an engaging filmmaking conversation.

Kittredge also shows some sharp editing skills, weaving in specific moments from the film to create wry commentary on the battles going on behind the scenes. Linda Blair would show up late, Richard Burton would leave early and Oscar-winner Louise Fletcher wound up exasperated.

Plus, there was the battle over the script re-writes, some ballooning budget and production schedules and Boorman’s case of Valley Fever that shut the whole thing down for five weeks.

Was there a Devilish curse at work?

Kittredge makes sure you appreciate all the things Boorman did right, and hear from a few critics who insist The Heretic is more triumph than tragedy. Either way, Boorman and The Devil is an essential and entertaining breakdown of one infamous film, and the devil-in-the-details of the filmmaking process itself.

New In Theaters

Won’t You Say You Love Me Too?

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Buddy

by Hope Madden

If you ever watched the old Barney & Friends TV show and worried that a big dinosaur who loses his temper could easily kill a bunch of children, well, you and Casper Kelly both.

Kelly’s been making goofy horror for years: Adult Swim Yule Log, “Fun Size” from V/H/S Halloween, the “Cheddar Goblin” bit in Mandy. (That last one is genius, let’s be honest.) With Buddy, he takes us into the make-believe world of a kids’ TV show, trapped probably somewhere in the 1990s, starring a big, fuzzy, orange unicorn.

Freckle faced Freddy (Delaney Quinn) is the first to notice that something seems wrong with Buddy. Just a minute ago, Buddy was helping Josh (Luke Speakman) realize that he really did want to dance. Even though Josh was pretty clear that he did not want to dance.

But where is Josh? And why is Josh’s book all covered in blood?

Kelly mines the unwholesome within the wholesome thanks in large part to committed set design and spot-on child performances. Plus the voice talent is nuts. Keegan-Michael Key is Buddy, Patton Oswalt does the voice of a backpack named Strappy, and Michael Shannon voices a Howdy Doody style marionette.

Make believe set-up in place, Buddy jumps from TV land into the real world just long enough to hint at a larger tale.

Here Topher Grace (essentially playing Topher Grace) and Cristin Milioti (wonderful) are raising their two sons, but Mom feels like something is off. Wrong. Missing.

Kelly, writing with Jamie King, understands how to subvert TV logic, whether sit-com or live-action kid stuff. His instincts in the land of make believe are especially on-point. There’s something unsettling about those shows, dating back to Mr. Rogers and those terrifying puppets. Or Captain Kangaroo. What was his deal?!

And Quinn guarantees you’ve emotionally invested, which is a rarity in such Midnight Movie fare. Kelly pushes the limits of the idea with a running time just over 90 minutes, but Buddy is a real unicorn. The film is clever, funny, gory, and surprisingly moving.

New In Theaters

On the Road Again and Again and Again

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It Ends

by George Wolf

Just in case Backrooms was too abstract about the anxieties plaguing Gen Z right now, It Ends arrives to hammer the point home more directly. Writer/director Alex Ullom’s feature debut is a well-constructed metaphor for a timely existential dread, with a slam-bang setup fueled by one early kickass jump scare.

Four twenty-something friends pile in a trusty four-door and head out. They’re laughing, talking and trusting their GPS until driver Tyler (Michael Cole) suspects that something doesn’t seem right.

He’s correct.

One wrong turn has trapped them on a never-ending backroad through the woods, where stopping for even a few minutes can be deadly. Don’t worry about the gas gauge, bathroom breaks or starvation, Ullom sees those questions coming. Instead, worry about how Tyler, Day (Akira Jackson), Fisher (Noah Toth) and James (Phinehas Yoon) will try to deconstruct this road trip rubric, and what they’ll learn as the miles add up.

If you’re thinking Exit 8, understandable, but that game offered a finish line that these drivers can only dream of.

They’re fresh out of college, and now they’re just facing an endless road of toil and frustration, managing a few fleeting moments of joy while they hang on to the hope that one day they might find salvation.

What kind of life is that?

Horror movies have always reflected generational fears, and this particular anxiety continues to resonate as an anchor for psychological torment. After that first act blast of terror, Ullom settles into a groove of introspection and gloom, with his four talented actors elevating a script that is a bit light on character development.

The important thing is, we believe these people are friends, and for the most part, their reactions to the situation (and, by extension, what it represents) seem genuine. The road only gets bumpy in act three, when Ullon seems desperate to reach a feature length runtime, spinning his wheels a bit before hitting us with his Rod Serling-esque finale.

It Ends still leaves a well-earned mark. It’s more proof that horror can be trusted to these talented young storytellers, and the future is looking scary good.

Hope Madden and George Wolf … get it?