Monthly Archives: February 2023

Movie review – Spoonful of Sugar

28 Tuesday Feb 2023

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Once you get past the nagging thought of trying to place the face of the lead, Morgan Saylor before pausing the film, googling and then cursing the fact that you should have known that she was Dana Brody from Homeland, you can finally settle into this warped variant on the Mary Poppins nanny with an ulterior motive theme of the movie. 

Spoonful of Sugar takes its name from that upbeat warbling song is the juxtaposition to the remedy riddled answer to life’s woes. Millicent (Saylor) is working on a thesis on children with severe allergies. Believing that she may have the perfect insight when landing the role of looking after Johnny (Danilo Crovetti), a mute child with a plethora of allergies and severe Mummy issues. It helps that part of the appeal to her idyllic job happens to have a hot father figure (yes, this movie is ripe with oedipal-like situations), Jacob (Myko Oliver) who walks around shirtless most of the time to show off his carpentry skills. 

With all the amped up sexual tension drifting around the place, it’s little wonder to find out that this is a mask to greater obstacles in the household. But who or how many of the central characters are wearing masks to protect their true intentions plays an integral part to the proceedings. And more importantly one that relies upon which of these facades will slip away first and what will the cost be when it occurs? 

With the mother, Rebecca (Kat Foster) clearly the main breadwinner in her pursuits as a successful author, and the reason for her continual absence, it paves the way for Millicent to play out her own fantasies as a Florence Nightingale figure, and delusions of fulfilling her own desires. 

The Prognosis:

Writer Leah Saint Marie and Director Mercedes Bryce Morgan have a clear vision in twisting the playing field of the human mind combined with the warped sexual drive that we have. When that playground is the home of a bandaged couple, healing their psychological wounds whilst raising a heavily dependent child, there is a dense and macabre world to drive a hefty wedge in and expose the inner most desires that can harbour deep inside. 

Spoonful of Sugar stretches the realms of believability which can distance the audience from the content, but this is Saylor’s showpiece and she shines as the delectably macabre Millicent. She is ably supported by a creative team willing for her to stretch her acting abilities, allowing her to explore every facet of an intriguing character.

  • Saul Muerte

Spoonful of Sugar will be streaming on Shudder from Thu 2nd March.

Movie review – Attachment (2023)

28 Tuesday Feb 2023

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Philophobia can be a powerful thing and consume your waking soul to the point of constant rejection of any would be partners. Perhaps it’s the fear of being rejected yourself, or that the fear itself is so overwhelming that you feel constricted and lose any sense of your own identity.

Sometimes the anxiety levels can run so high that you begin to question everything and you’re already deemed a bit quirky or a loner, so why break this habit?

Or this loss of control leaves you amped up and fueling a violent relationship that could potentially put you or your partner at risk.

All these things become moments of scrutiny in Gabriel Bier Gislason’s feature Attachment. Guiding this area of focus is a Danish has-been actress Maja (Josephine Park), who has a chance encounter with Leah (Ellie Kendrick, who eagle-eyed viewers may recognise as Meera Reed from Game of Thrones).The attraction is instant with that early flicker of awkwardness which soon becomes embroiled in lust. 

Then there’s those little clues, hints that something is awry, like when Leah starts walking around in her sleep. Or when she has a mysterious seizure that leads her to returning home in London. Still driven by this desire, Maja follows Leah to England where she is greeted by a strange and overbearing mother, Chana (Sofie Gråbøl). 

As the days pass, the curiosities rise. Is this just a case of an overprotective and smothering parent, but is there more lurking beneath the surface. Why are there so many secrets being held, and who is this Uncle Lev figure? (David Dencik). 

The film plays heavily into the realms of xenophobia, tapping into the unknown. As an outsider, Maja constantly questions with genuine curiosity whether the devout Jewish practices are what segregates and isolates her from finding the true connection with Leah, or is there an occult operation at play? If it’s the latter, then  is there a greater fear to be had? And who is the one that is really needing the protection?

The biggest question is will Maja be willing to go to extreme lengths in order to pursue love?

The Prognosis:

There’s some great performances to be found here, in what is essentially a straight down the road piece. The twists and turns that the audience face are navigable and in some cases predictable. Despite the road ahead seemingly transparent in places, the talent on show and the depth of character is weighty enough for you to be carried along to its final destination.

  • Saul Muerte

Attachment is currently streaming on ShudderANZ.

Movie review – Missing (2023)

28 Tuesday Feb 2023

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Found Footage Films. Bit of a hot button topic here at Surgeons, they can be both brilliant & bad in that they can spin a great yarn despite limitations in coverage, whilst that very same limitation can lead to repetitive story-telling techniques.

Surgeons of Horror podcast – Found Footage Horror

Having said that, one of the more innovate ways to execute such movies, is to use the all-pervasive and ever intrusive digital world as your lens.
Cleverly done by the film Unfriended (and its sequel Unfriended:Dark Web) Missing is the sandbox sequel to Searching and Run (apparently). And by that we mean it takes place in the same universe as Searching (a similar digital interface film
– I’ve decided that that is what we shall call this type of found footage sub-genre) and Run (which is a traditional coverage film). And although no doubt the film-makers have a good reason to make these 3 movies connected, you are pretty much hit with a 3-letter word starting with a redundant W and H, and ending with a Y!? Especially when you actually see the connection (and you need a microscope for one of them) you soon realise their inclusiveness adds nothing whatsoever to the plot of Missing.
So maybe there is a future Avengersstyle mega Searching/Run/Missing film to come where the leads of each movie team up to, I dunno, tackle a genuine impossible-to-solve mystery; like tracking a missing Uber Eats order, but in the meantime let’s explore Missing!

The premise of the film – as seen by the trailer (see clip above this article) is – a single mother of a teenage girl goes on a holiday with her boyfriend, and then promptly disappears. Said teenager then uses the power of the internet to track her down, only to find multiple layers of “things are NOT what they seem….”

So far so usual right? And even though conceptually & execution wise Missing has a lot in common with Searching (and nothing in common with Run) it is a well-made film that does the most fundamentally important thing a flick like this needs to do. And that’s draw you in.

The actual plot is driven from the perspective of the daughter’s laptop interface. The daughter, June (played by Storm Reid (someone’s parents were Fantastic 4 fans…) uses every legit (and maybe one or 2 made up ones? I dunno, I’m a Gen X-er) website and internet service out there to hunt down her mother.
And the first thing you are immediately struck by is… just how fast can this girl type!?? Clearly the speed in which she navigates from one idea to another as she opens, scrolls, reads and downloads
app after app to hack, track, investigate, eliminate clue after clue to find out what the hell happened
to her mum is accelerated for ease-of-storytelling. But you kinda get the impression that, as with
most Gen Zedders, it ain’t that far off.
So dayumshe’s fast! The FBI (unbelievably impotent and inept in this film) really need to hire her
when she graduates high school.

And the 2nd thing you are struck by is, which websites or apps turned down this movie!? ‘Cause this
is a GREAT advertising platform for any such thing to show off their features! Just with Gmail alone, I can guarantee you’ll come away from the theatre saying “I had no idea it could do that!” In fact, if the film-makers were smart, that’s how they would have pitched this movie in order to
a) get permission to use said apps and
b) get funding.
Because the more cynical of you out there could easily accuse Missing of being a feature length commercial for Internet companies big and small. And you’d be hard pressed to be proven wrong. But the story is good enough to make you look past all that.

The 3rd thing is that one should definitely see this at the movies. Unfriended is a good film (yep, you have to print that Saul, ‘cause it is – (SAUL “I’m printing this because of freedom of speech, but just for the record, I completely disagree.”)) but if you see it on a laptop you WILL suffer from small text syndrome. Missing gets around this by zooming in where it needs to, but all words are legible by the simple fact it’s a movie going experience. If you wait for it to come out on streaming, you will lose some of the
impact.

The 4th thing is that this film – during the creative process – would have run into the usual limitation all found footage directors run into. How do you tell a story effectively when you are restrained in your camera coverage? Well Missing does a good job addressing this too, with surreptitious use of mirrors (literally) and jump-cut close ups.

The Prognosis:

Missing is a surprising page turner that builds frog-in-boiling-water style very well, so by the time you start to get to the more incredulous reveals, you honestly go with it, ‘cause they are quite well earned. And you do kinda want to see how it all ends. Otherwise, you’ll won’t know what you’re missing… (yeah. It had to be said).

  • Antony Yee

PS: Oh – a quick Google search says that this type of found footage drama is called Screen Life Horror. Well that’s just stoopid…

Movie review – Cocaine Bear

26 Sunday Feb 2023

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A few months ago there was a rumbling on the internet, a whisper of something coming, a promise of a film whose title was the only selling point you needed: Cocaine Bear. A modern day animal exploitation movie the likes of which we haven’t seen since Snakes on a Plane, a meme of a movie that asks the question what if a bear did cocaine? And now it’s finally here, does it live up to the name?

When a drug smuggler dumps his shipment into a national park, a host of locals and out-of-towner’s struggle to survive the brown bear that has discovered the drugs and formed a dangerous habit. The four main story threads consist of off-duty nurse, Sari (Keri Russell), searching for her young daughter; Eddie and Daveed (Alden Ehrenreich & O’Shae Jackson Jr) two criminals sent to retrieve the missing drugs by their boss Syd (Ray Liotta); police detective Bob (Isiah Whitlock Jr.) following after the criminals; and park ranger Liz (Margo Martindale) who is just trying to survive.

The movie is also set in the 80’s giving us a few anti-drug commercials of the time and some real life footage of the actual news reporting around the event at the top of the film. That’s right as the poster, trailer and movie will insist this is based on a true story, when drug smugglers dumped a cocaine shipment in the middle of the woods and indeed a bear did find it and did indeed consume cocaine but in real life the bear died whereas the film dramatises what if cocaine had the same effect on bears as spinach has to Popeye.

From the plot summary above you might guess my first issue with this film: the script. This movie runs at 95 minutes but it is overstuffed with characters. I didn’t even mention the surviving hippy running around from the opening, the three low-ambition local thugs, the two ambulance drivers (in one of the best sequences of the film), the visiting forest fire specialist, our stranger things dose of two children amongst it all and the secondary cop character who pops back up towards the end for no real impact.

Now there are some fun performances here particularly one of the young kids, Henry (Christain Convery) who gives a lot of best lines, and one of the local thugs, Kid (Aaron Holliday) who is the largest source of character comedy in the film, and Keri Russell, in her pink jumpsuit, deserves so much more love and time but with so many people running all around we just don’t have the time to properly invest and develop themes, story or plot.

Now most people will give it the Sharknado defense, “You want plot? You want a story? Who needs themes when you’ve got the cocaine bear?” but the film aspires to be more, it’s not relying on cliches to the extent that it probably should. So what we’re left is a massive cast of characters but no time to properly explore the stories that they so desperately want to tell here.

Elizabeth Banks helms the film as director, her last film being the (somewhat unfairly) maligned Charlie’s Angels reboot/sequel. It’s a shame because I’ve loved Banks as an actor for years, and I’ve been rooting for her as a director just to watch her films generally miss the mark ever so slightly and that continues to be the case here. The tone here is kind of head scratching because it’s not funny, the attempts at comedy are far and few between, I had maybe two laughs in the entire time. The aforementioned ambulance scene has a glimmer leaning more into horror but then we drop that as well. It’s just a bit of a wet mess. There’s certainly some enjoyment to be had here, there are some really fun sequences, the soundtrack bolstering the whole affair and the action is handled particularly well, hitting all the schlocky notes that the movie should have more of, but the comedy of the film mostly doesn’t hit the mark, a few too many performances just seem to be sleepwalking through the runtime and could probably use a hit of some kind of stimulant.

The titular bear though is a joy, the special effects render it impressively for the modest budget and it is stylised and cartoony just enough that it never feels terribly odd. Honestly the bear is so fun, whenever it’s on screen I want a prequel, a sequel, a whole Fast and Furious length series, son of Cocaine Bear, Abbott and Costello meet Cocaine Bear, Cocaine Bear Goes to Camp/College/Space. It’s where the rest of the cast comes in that drags the movie down.

The Prognosis:

The performances and the writing work in tandem to just sink the film below what is fun and enjoyable and turns the film into an overly ambitious 95 minute feature in need of a punch up.

2/5

  • Oscar Jack

Movie review – The Strays (2023)

25 Saturday Feb 2023

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There’s a lot to unpack from Nathaniel Martello-White’s psychological thriller The Strays, It’s a cyclical social commentary on racial discrimination and elitism that unfolds through a series of events. 

We begin with a prologue sequence where Neve (Ashley Madakwe) is in the throes of a mental breakdown, trapped in an as-yet-undisclosed world with only the thought of escape on her mind. So she packs some of her things and leaves her flat and whatever troubles that she can’t face behind her.

Cut to a title sequence informing the audience that its years later and Neve has now established herself a life of privilege as deputy principal of an elite school with a husband and two kids. The social ladder that she has climbed has seen her as a socialite within the small town community.

Try as she might to hide behind this facade, the mask soon slips as she questions whether she is losing her grip on reality or has her past come back to haunt her as two mysterious assailants appear to be creeping further into her new life threatening to rip it apart at the seams.

SPOILERS AHEAD

When we reach the third segment, we get to go back to find out the true identity of the two assailants, Marvin (Jordan Merle) and Abigail Bukky Bakray) are revealed to be her two children from a previous life. Naturally there is a lot of pent up aggression having been abandoned and to discover that their mother is now living a wealthy lifestyle.

The film’s climax entitled Family Reunion is a pot boiler of emotion all shot in one take to embody the natural performances from each of the characters. It’s nervy, unsettling and delicately poised as the audience is left ambling along with the characters to find a solution. What is presented is one that may leave audiences baffled or applauding its direction.

The Prognosis:

Martello-White delivers a stylised directorial piece that examines the cyclical behaviour that trauma has on society. The performances are solid, particularly from Madakwe and Bukray throwing powerful portrayals of their respective characters. 

The experiment and mode of delivery may irk, especially with its stylised execution but for a debut feature, there is enough punch to make one sit up and take notice.

  • Saul Muerte

Retrospective – The Mummy (1959)

24 Friday Feb 2023

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Within the last three years of the 1950s, Hammer Films had reshaped the Universal Classic monsters canon with The Curse of Frankenstein, Dracula and The Revenge of Frankenstein, bringing into full glorious and gory colour for a then, modern audience, With it, Hammer would also unite one of celluloid history’s greatest co-stars in the horror genre in Peter Cushing and Sir Christopher Lee. Before the turn of the decade, the British production house would turn their attention to yet another Universal offering, The Mummy, and keep that winning formula of Cushing, Lee and film director Terence Fisher. Cushing played the dashing hero, and Lee subjected to the ‘monster’ character and hidden behind full make up for the last time with Hammer. It was a tortuous and gruelling affair for its two leads, and would lead Cushing to the hospital following a scene gone awry. Cushing would also become more bold in his acting choices and in cementing his character traits on screen and guiding his director in some of teh action sequences.

The familiar tale of the mummified High Priest Kharis (Lee) resurrected under the power of Mehemet Bey (George Pastell) to seek revenge for disturbing Princess Ananka’s tomb, is given the Hammer treatment. Here Cushing plays the part of John Banning, one of the doomed expedition crew. His father, Stephen (Felix Aylmer) has been driven mad and escorted to the asylum with his prophecies of the forthcoming mummy. Initially scoffed at and ridiculed, the subject takes a dark and sour turn when Stephen is killed by Kharis’ bandaged hands.

Kharis would also be moved by his lost love, Ananka, whose appearance is uncannily similar to John Banning’s wife, (Yvonne Furneaux) and thus brings about our damsel in distress theme.

Jimmy Sangster would once again herald the screenplay writing duties, fusing Universal’s The Mummy; The Mummy’s Tomb; and The Mummy’s Ghost to puff out his take on the story for Hammer. 

Upon its cinematic release, the name Hammer was starting to cause quite a stir among moviegoers, and The Mummy became a big success for the company. It even surpassed its successors in the box office and in some ways is a more solid feature in its narrative, and effects. Despite the climatic ending where Kharis played by go to stuntman Eddie Powell sinking into the depths of the quagmire, the British Film company was rising to new heights. And it was all in the name of horror.

  • Saul Muerte. 

Retrospective – The Hound of the Baskervilles (1958)

24 Friday Feb 2023

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Before Benedict Cumberbatch donned the deerstalker hat for Moffat and Gatiss’ modern interpretation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s infamous detective, another British icon had made an impressionable mark for Hammer Film Productions’ The Hound of the Baskervilles. Having already portrayed literature icons Baron Frankenstein and Van Helsing, it was time to turn his head towards Sherlock Holmes for one of his greatest adventures. 

His Doctor Watson would be ably performed by Andre Morell (The Plague of Zombies) who himself would become a Hammer staple, but it would be the casting of Sir Chrisopher Lee as Sir Henry Baskervilles (once again unite Hammer’s most memorable duo on screen) in the first representation of the tale in colour surrounding the dreaded curse and the beast the walks the moors.

Hammer would look to sensationalise or create drama that was absent from the initial storyline, including the tarantula scene. Probably the hardest trick was to produce a larger than life hound for the film’s climax; a tough act considering Lee’s stature, but Hammer found their answer with a Great Dane called Colonel. 

It was initially conceived to be the gateway to many more Sherlock Holmes’ adaptations, but would be the only occurrence, much to the company and cinephiles’ dismay. It would have been interesting to see Cushing take on the role in numerous other stories. 

The great Terence Fisher who had stamped his signature vision; and one that became synonymous with the Hammer style with The Curse of Frankenstein and Dracula, would wield his take of the action from the Director’s chair. With the talent in front of the screen from which to mould the narrative, Fisher had created a feature that stands alongside these Gothic treatments that made Hammer Horror’s name, so it’s a shame that there weren’t more chances to delve within Conan Doyle’s world.

  • Saul Muerte

Movie review – The Welder (2023)

23 Thursday Feb 2023

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Is it wrong to judge a movie by its trailer?
There is always that element of luring the audience with the most tantalising elements of the film and yet, there was something that captured my intrigue towards David Liz’s sophomore feature. 

The Welder boasts all the hallmarks of a decent horror movie, with a psychologically unbalanced killer, who comes into contact with a traumatised victim to force the latter into confronting and potentially overcoming her fears.

At the heart of the movie Liz injects the theme of race and the gulf that divides us. More importantly it tackles the notion of what happens within this chasm when it is not adhered to and left within the wastelands of neglect.

This theme is driven through the eyes of Eliza (Camilla Rodriguez) a young latino woman, a former military doctor who faced her fair share of traumatic experiences that continue to haunt her. This deeply immersed incident is what encourages her boyfriend, Roe (Roe Dunkley) to book a holiday for them to a remote ranch, away from life’s turmoils so that they can be together and recuperate. 

But it wouldn’t be a horror thriller without a catch to their chosen paradise. This comes in the guise of ranch owner, William Godwin (Vincent de Paul) who harbours a secret beneath his pleasant demeanour, one that has pushed him to madness, experimenting with a warped vision to eradicate this racial discrimination.

The Prognosis:

There are some suitably scarring moments that are brought to screen with the image of body mutilation and psychological tension brought to the fore. The dialogue is often delivered naturally between the two leads, Rodriguez and Dunkley with great chemistry. Rodriguez in particular is great to watch drifting through the various stages of anxiety and fear. I did feel that de Paul’s performance as the doctor struggled to lift out of the innate appeal to shift into the heightened state of macabre delirium needed to convey enough scares.

It’s a slow burn which has its pros and cons in that it allows time to build up character depth, but loses out in delivering enough for a satisfying climax. 

Still, a worthy effort and has enough strong parts from which to fuse Liz’s narrative and creativity.

  • Saul Muerte

The Welder is available on digital platforms from Feb 24th.

Movie review – Skinamarink (2023)

19 Sunday Feb 2023

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I’m caught between minds about Skinamarink, this experimental directorial feature debut from Kyle Edward Ball. In part it leans heavily into minimalism to explore the finest examples of terror through the eyes of two children, who wake up in the night to find their father missing and strange things happening around the house. The fact that we never see the children, nor their father, with Ball stripping the viewing experience down to its bare bones and denying the audience a window into the depth of the film. Instead, the idea is to focus on the empty space, a phrase coined by theatre director Peter Brook, for his book of the same name. In it he expresses, “I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged”.

If we take this aspect or perspective and that the space is merely a place that means nothing until something enters its domain, then it bodes to mention that Ball is willing to explore a similar concept within the location or setting of his movie. If the space is a vessel in which spirits or beings pass through, then we surely can’t connect with the space until something or someone interacts within it.

As such, the viewer is poised through endless frames of emptiness, only to be treated with nuggets of movement or sound to stimulate our senses and push the boundaries of fear.

In reality however, these absences of action only switch off our interests, and slowly the audience will struggle to remain captivated. Is this the fault of the director though, when we as a society have become so engrained in action on screen, that to take this away or prevent us from this engagement, speaks volumes about how we interact with life. If we take note of the smallest of intricacies, then and only then can we really acknowledge the beauty that surrounds us?

The question though is, Is Horror the right genre to explore such an abstract playing field? Sure, Horror has been known to be forgiving, but when it comes at the cost of engaging with the audience, then you are left pondering its purpose.

The Prognosis:

While I applaud (Director) Ball for a bold approach to filmmaking which at times is reminiscent of The Beatles own exploration of music in Revolution No. 9, the outcome is all too repetitive and a struggle to connect with. It’s hard to believe that the content has been stretched to feature length when a short would probably have sufficed, Having said that though, his experimentation would not have been explored without pushing the boundaries of time.

It’s hard as a viewer to go beyond the limits of conception when we are being forced to observe its formulation. What constitutes horror and is it enough to hint without explanation? A question that may frustrate most who come to watch.

  • Saul Muerte

Skinamarink is currently streaming on ShudderANZ.

Movie review – The Lair (2023)

17 Friday Feb 2023

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Watching Neil Marshall’s (ahem) descent from action horror pioneer to low grade fluff has been a painful process to watch. Ever since he hit the ground running with werewolf, military action thriller, Dog Soldiers and swiftly followed this with the female empowered cave shocker, The Descent, I’ve been eagerly awaiting his next big moment to arise. Instead, we’ve seen him slowly repeat similar incarnations of these movie highlights in a decline into lesser quality. That’s not to say there hasn’t been glimmers of hope, especially with his foray into the Game of Thrones series, and perhaps it’s this that keeps on bringing me back.  I should have known to be cautious however following his previous venture The Reckoning, a sadly lacking tale of witchery and persecution. 

Which brings us to The Lair, an amalgamation of the aforementioned Dog Soldiers and The Descent, but instead of remote Scotland as its setting, we find ourselves in Afghanistan. And instead of werewolves or The Crawlers; cave dwelling humanoids, our protagonists come face to face with souped up human/alien hybrids that are being tooled as biological weapons. 

Charlotte Kirk returns as Marshall’s kick-ass muse (as well as a writing credit) to take on our heroine Lt. Kate Sinclair. Sinclair, along with a handful of militants and an Afghan hostage, seek refuge in a bunker facility to escape confrontation only to come into conflict with the beasts below.

So far, so promising right? 

The issue comes in its delivery. Yes there are action sequences on display, and a couple of typical one-liners that make you groan, the collaboration of a mix-match group, strung together to fight a common cause are all on display, but there’s nothing new on show. It doesn’t help that the dialogue is incredibly two-dimensional and clunky when delivered. When the tension shifts, the audience struggles to connect as a result and are left trailing along to what becomes a predictable and tired conclusion.

The Prognosis:

Neil Marshall’s descent into woeful movies continues to sink into greater depths. Average action, a worn out narrative, and ropeable dialogue only adds weight to his plummet. 

  • Saul Muerte

The Lair is currently screening on ShudderANZ