Category Archives: Movie review

Movie review: Promising Young Woman

23 Saturday Jan 2021

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In some circles, there will be some grumblings about the current state of affairs when it comes to female empowerment on the screen and that perhaps that this film serves as a marker for this wave of change. To those people, I simply say, fuck you.

The pendulum is long overdue a swing towards a bevy of muliebral energy and with Emerald Fennell (Killing Eve)  at the helm in both writing and directing duties, we’re presented with a sharp, witty and intelligent film that heralds a prime position for tales led with the feminine gaze.

What struck me above the dialogue from this essentially dark comedy piece, was the casting of some of America’s wittiest comedians, ranging from Alison Brie, Jennifer Coolidge, Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Molly Shannon. The inclusion of stellar support actors in Clancy Brown, Laverne Cox, Connie Britton, and Alfred Molina further supports the strength of the script, showcasing just how strong Fennel’s writing is to lure in talent, but more importantly the talent that can deliver the narrative in a manner that it deserves. None more so than Carey Mulligan who leads as 30 year old Cassie, a lady who still lives with her parents, ‘a promising young woman’ who drops out of medical school following the rape of her best friend Nina. It is alluded that the trauma of this incident led to Nina taking her own life and charges Cassie with a lifelong mission to seek vengeance on those who wronged her. 

When we first meet Cassie, we quickly learn that she is both smart and calculating when she poses as drunk in order to lure men into taking them back home, proving that they generally only have one thing on their mind and to steer them into correcting their behaviour, changing their ways. 

This journey takes a more dark and twisted tale when Cassie further learns that Al Monroe (Chris Lowell) the man responsible for the rape of Nina, is due to marry, and propels Cassie down the rabbit hole of revenge that spirals into a climax that appears out of her control.

It is the final reveal however that truly displays the lengths and breadths that Cassie is willing to go to in order to ensure that justice is established. Not only is this a deeply dark view of her purpose, but also a harrowing reminder that despite the gender pendulum is swinging back, there’s still a long way to come when the course of action taking by Cassie seems to be the only one open for certain individuals to sit up and take notice of just how serious things have gone and how far we still need to go.

The Prognosis:

Fennell is more than accomplished in her first outing in the director’s chair. I can’t wait to see what she produces next.

The script is incredibly on point and projects a fine balance of humour, drama and tension with some powerful performances that bring the melody to the fore.
The message is clear and with it, Promising Young Woman delivers a promising start to 2021 genre based movies.

  • Saul Muerte

Movie review: Countdown (2019)

13 Wednesday Jan 2021

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Initially when I heard about this movie, I couldn’t help but think of a sketch from popular British comedy series, The I.T. Crowd.

It did also smack of clutching at straws to try and get a horror vehicle out there that taps into the latest technology and social media trends and invokes the same sense of fear and dread that J Horror films such as The Ring or Kairo subjected into the mainstream.

With previous attempts such as Unfriended missing the mark, I went in with my expectations low. What I found was a film that was able to elevate those expectations, while admittedly it didn’t blow my mind, director Justin Dec manages to wrangle enough out of the plotline to make it both enjoyable and watchable.

We get the inevitable precursor explanation of the virus mobile app called Countdown, which correctly predicts the users time of death. A group of teenagers discuss this at a party where they provoke each other into downloading the app and participating in it as a sort of dare moment. The outcome. One of said teenagers is told she only has hours to live and tries to change her fate only for the app to prove true with its prediction.

The story then revolves further around Nurse Quinn Harris (Elizabeth Lail – Dead of Summer)  who has just finished up her internship at the hospital and been appointed to a full time position. Quinn learns about the app from a patient who was the boyfriend of our first victim. The app tells her that she only has 3 days left to live and with it opens up the labyrinth for Quinn to fall down in order to try and outlast and outwit this curse. 

Joining her on her voyage is Matt Monroe (Jordan Calloway – Riverdale) who is predicted to die a few hours before Quinn, and her sister, Jordan (Talitha Bateman – Annabelle: Creation) who also downloads the app. (Insert facepalm emoji). 

There’s a fairly decent supporting cast in Matt Letscher (Flash) as the single Dad, Peter Facinelli (The Twilight saga), but the stand out has to go to P.J. Byrne (The Gift) as Father John going against the religious, disciplined stereotype, busting out more as a fanboy of the occult if anything else, which felt refreshing.

The Prognosis:

So despite my predisposition that this film reached higher than my expectations, it still failed to deliver on the horror front and go beyond the realms of previous genre movies in the scare department. Nor did it offer anything too original.
It did entertain though, and I can’t help but feel this was down to its cast more than the plotline or directorial choices.

  • Saul Muerte

Retrospective: Calling Dr. Death (1944)

04 Monday Jan 2021

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Launching off the success of the popular radio series, Universal scored the rights to produce a series of films based on The Inner Sanctum Mysteries, an anthology of mystery, terror, and suspense. Initially, the film series had been intended as a joint venture for stable actors Lon Chaney Jr., and Gale Sondergaard to be cast in the lead roles, but for reasons unknown to this writer, the latter didn’t end up being involved.
For Chaney Jr however, he felt that this would be the perfect vehicle to break his horror monster mould that he had been typecast in of late. 

The first in the film series, Calling Dr. Death casts Chaney Jr. as a neurologist, Dr Steele, who is also a dab hand at hypnosis. Unfortunately he is caught in a bitter marriage, where his wife, Maria (Ramsay Ames) displays no feelings towards him and clearly is only invested in his money and the status that comes with it.

So, when Maria turns up dead, Steele becomes the prime suspect, clouded all the more by his sudden amnesia with a lack of recollection for the last few days.

Steele decides to call upon his assistant, Stella (Patricia Morison) to put him under hypnosis and uncover the truth before Inspector Gregg (J. Carrol Naish) pins the murder on him. 

Could it be Maria’s lover Robert (David Bruce), Robert’s jealous wife (Fay Helm) or is he really responsible for wrongdoing?

Calling Dr. Death uses a fairly standard voiceover device, (apparently on the insistence of Chaney Jr. and used throughout the series, which sometimes works but often grates) to gain the insights of Dr. Steele. There is enough of a plot here to intrigue the viewer, with plenty of suspects to fuel the mystery and keep you guessing, marking the movie as a strong entry into the series and worth checking out to see Chaney Jr without getting his wolf on.

  • Saul Muerte

Movie review: Host

04 Monday Jan 2021

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Straight off the bat, I have to proclaim that I am not a massive fan of the found footage genre. There have been some exceptions, primarily Spanish horror flick, [REC], and as much as it pains me, I’ve come to appreciate The Blair Witch Project over the years for how it’s simple storytelling and tapping into the wake of the internet boom. 

Check out the Surgeons team on the Found Footage genre here

Similarly, Host capitalises on the current social climate and the restrictions that COVID 19 has had on the Arts. Unlike the film Unfriended which tried to harness the ever-changing social media landscape to project fear onto the screens, but ultimately falling short of expectations, Director Rob Savage, crafts a clever and creative script using the minimal amount of tools to his advantage, shooting everything through Zoom links and relying heavy on his cast to create the lighting, stunts, and visual effects needed to pull off the story and make it seem believable.

The narrative takes place with a group of friends meeting together via Zoom to initiate a seance, conducted by a medium, Seylan. It all seems innocent with some of the group not entirely taking it seriously, but as events play out, it soon takes a sinister turn with the group unwittingly calling in a demonic entity into their fold. Can they ward off this evil presence, or will it slowly and violently take them out?

The Prognosis:

Don’t be turned off by the remarkably short running time, Host packs in a lot into the story with great performances and strong characters. Not all of them are likeable, but that’s the point. You have to have a few that you wish to get their comeuppance and those that you genuinely hope to survive their ordeal. Savage has proved himself a compelling storyteller as a result, while taking a simple enough premise and weaving a delightfully dark tale with minimal tools at hand. It goes to show that you don’t need a lot to create a little bit of magic and by tapping into the social mainstream, breathe life into the found footage genre once more.

  • Saul Muerte

Movie review: The Platform

02 Saturday Jan 2021

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This Spanish horror flick that is currently streaming on Netflix Australia has garnered some buzz since its release early in 2020. A potential reason that it resonated so profoundly among viewers is its clear social commentary on class warfare. 

Our stage is set when the main protagonist, Goreng (Iván Massagué), awakens in a cell marked with the number 48. We soon learn primarily through his cellmate, Trimagasi (Zorion Eguileor), that they are now part of the Vertical Self-Management Centre, a vertical tower where each floor has a hole that drives straight through its centre, in which a platform of food is lowered down to feed the inmates. The purpose is that those nearest the top are provided with the highest quality food and the further down the tower you are, the less likely you will be to reap the benefits of their status.

Each inmate is either sentenced or volunteers to serve a term inside the complex and must endure the time in order to survive. There is no knowing which floor you will be placed, and even then, one only remains for a total of 30 days before being moved on to a different floor. There is only a small amount of time to eat the allocated food too, before it is passed on down to the lower levels. Naturally with such a strict and measured regime, it brings out the worst in humanity, forced to fight tooth and nail for every last scrap or morsel of food. 

Despite the desperate and the barbaric,  bloody nature on show, there is a glimmer of hope in some of the inmates, and Goreng does his level best to turn this state of affairs around and search for a chance for salvation for all.

The Prognosis:

This movie may slather on the morals with a thick wedge of conspicuousness, but the manner in which it delivers is gloriously brutal, heart-rendering and painstakingly satisfying that it deserves high praise for the bold and accessible approach that director Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia serves. 

The system may be broken, but it only takes a few to stand true and turn the table. 

A brave statement told through a dystopian lens.

  • Saul Muerte

Movie review: Blood Quantum

30 Wednesday Dec 2020

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There is a lot to praise about this film, but chiefly is its stance on American colonialism and thrusting the theme of zombie horror as the platform to herald from. The term Blood Quantum is from the Indian Blood Laws in the United States that determine Native American identity by the percentages of their ancestry, for example if you are born from a mother and father who are considered 100 percent Native American, you would be deemed as having pure blood.

It is this concept that is then carried through the film’s narrative which determines those with Native American blood, immune to a zombie outbreak that occurs.

When we meet our lead characters, they are a mismatch of family members, fractured by the toils that society has placed upon them. There’s the patriarchal figure in Traylor , an indigenous sheriff, who despite being the lead authority in the fishing town, has had his fair share of mistakes to bear his soul. The biggest test that Traylor must face is the bestow upon his two (Michael Greyeyes) sons (both from different mothers) the responsibilities that adulthood brings. One of his sons, Joseph (Forrest Goodluck) has the promise to take on this role, but is prone to self-sabotage and avoidance, which is primarily brought around by the daunting task of becoming a father himself. The other son, Lysol (Kiowa Gordon) seems to be beyond salvation, content on playing by his own rules. Traylor certainly has his work cut out for him under normal circumstances, but this all unfolds in the middle of a zombie outbreak. 

Thankfully, he’s supported by some kick-ass individuals along the way to protect him, his family and community along the way. Among them are his own father, Gisigu (Stonehorse Lone Goeman), a sword-wielding fiend who certainly knows how to hold his own and bastion of his kin. There’s also Traylor’s ex-wife, and mother to Joseph, Joss (Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers), who also happens to be a nurse. In this narrative, she serves as the constant strength and support to her family, despite all of their flaws.

The Prognosis:

The first half an hour of the movie as the zombie outbreak is unleashed, is jam-packed with tension as the lead characters first fathom what they are faced with and then how to survive this ordeal.

Unfortunately the middle section sags a little as the community has set up a refuge six months after the outbreak and learn that they are immune from the virus. The film struggles to stay afloat during this phase and at times feels that it is in danger of losing all the promise that led the stories charge. 

Blood Quantum’s saving grace comes from the strength of its characters. The inner turmoil that is evident in the set up, and like the virus itself, cannot be saved. Instead it is down to the most resilient of them to prevail and find a way out of their predicament. Just a shame it wasn’t able to keep the pace throughout.

  • Saul Muerte

Movie Review: Possessor

22 Tuesday Dec 2020

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When Brandon Cronenberg entered the filmmaking scene with his directorial feature film debut, Antiviral (currently available to stream on SBS on Demand), it came with the leadened presence that the Cronenberg name carries with it, and as such, a lot of eyes scrutinised this body horror tale. For a first time behind the camera, Antiviral is actually a solid film. Sure it has its flaws, but at its beating heart is a strong pulse with some decent ideas.

For his second feature, Cronenberg not only raises the bar of his previous outing, but elevates himself exponentially and quite possibly serves up this reviewers favourite movie of 2020.

It’s a bold statement and one that should not be marred by what has admittedly been a crappy year in film distribution due to the impact that COVID has brought to the globe. 

Boosted by an incredible cast in Andrea Riseborough (Mandy, The Grudge), Christopher Abbott (It Comes At Night, Piercing), Rossif Sutherland, Tuppence Middleton, Sean Bean, and Jennifer Jason-Leigh, the screenplay (also written by Cronenberg) has the heavyweight performances to pull off a complex, and deeply unsettling narrative.

It’s a wildly compelling premise, which follows agent Tasia Vos (Riseborough) who works for an underground company run by Girder (Jason-Leigh), who infiltrate other people’s bodies through the use of brain-implant technology. The stakes are high and the clientele, lucrative. With each mission, the risk is great and requires not only a great mind, but also the efficiency to pull off these assassination attempts to reap significant profit as a result. 

The physician and mental drain on each assignment comes with its own hurdle as you must not only study the person’s characteristics and quirks to ensure that they are still believable to those family and friends but combined with the constant battle with the host’s own mind, the agent’s timeline to pull off the assignment is narrow. Failure would lead to both minds infusing together and potential brain damage. This deadline amplifies the tension much to the delight of the viewer.

The added spanner in the works is that Vos comes with her estranged husband and son. The gulf in their relationship caused by Vos’s work and a constant strain on their lives, and the anchor to her reality that constantly tugs at her emotions and clouds her own motives when carrying out her tasks. 

The mission in question is to infiltrate the mind of Colin Tate (Abbott), fiancé to Ava Parse (Middleton) and heir to her father, John’s (Bean) estate. Once in control of Tate,  Vos has 48 hours to kill John, Ava, and finally Colin, before being pulled back into her own body once more.
A task that may prove one stretch too far.

The Prognosis:

From the shocking opening scene, through a brilliantly crafted sci-fi screenplay and an ultimately rewarding conclusion, Brandon Cronenberg has thrown the gauntlet down, commanding our attention as a filmmaker with vision, powerful performances, and a beautifully presented mindfuck.

  • Saul Muerte

Possessor is currently streaming on Shudder

Movie review: Sweet River (2020)

09 Wednesday Dec 2020

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The latest Australian psychological thriller, Sweet River has been released on streaming platform Netflix and like most recent flicks from Down Under it comes with some heavy-laden drama that grinds you down to a gritty conclusion.

The setting for this tale of grief, loss and the search for truth is definitely its selling point, cast in Northern New South Wales between Byron Bay and Tweed Heads where the land is rich in sugar cane fields. The cinematography by Tim Tregoning is stunning and elevates the landscape beyond the screen that is simply captivating and bolden’s Director Justin McMillan’s vision to the fore. Especially the use of red light cast across the river banks that highlight the need to see and not awaken anything submerged in the shadowy depths.

Here the saccharine land has been slowly rotting away with the local community who harbour a secret. This makes our protagonist Hanna’s (Lisa Kay – Indian Summers) quest all the more troubling, as every move she makes to determine what happened to her son is quashed. 

Leading the supporting cast is a stoic performance from an almost unrecognisable Martin Sacks (Wentworth, Blue Heelers) as John, who balances a fine line between help and hindrance to Hanna’s pursuit. And Genevieve Lemon as an equally tortured soul.

There are many elements that are at play here that warrant a far superior film than is ultimately delivered. The mystery and intrigue that surrounds the stunning scenery serves a great juxtaposition with a harrowing journey for the audience to travel down, but this also serves as its downfall, as often we are reduced to the murky depths of an at times stagnant quagmire of a narrative. 

The Prognosis:

The problem is that the standards have been set high in recent years in Australia, with Hounds of Love, Rabbit, and Killing Ground that we’ve come to expect a more hardened journey that stimulates whilst also being smart and intriguing.
Even though it’s a different medium Vicki Madden’s The Kettering Incident and The Gloaming have also set the precedence in this field, which admittedly she has more time to untangle the mystery in her tv show screenplays.
As such, Sweet River leaves the audience wading through thick undergrowth which can be difficult viewing. Despite the struggle, there are moments where the story flows and the scenery swallows you into its serenity. 

  • Saul Muerte

Retrospective: The House of Frankenstein (1944)

04 Friday Dec 2020

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Some thirteen years after the release of Dracula back in 1931, Universal now had a decent backlog of Universal Monsters in their midst.
After the relative success of Frankenstein vs The Wolf Man, which pitted two of their creatures head to head in its climax, it was a logical step to combine as many as possible into the one film. 

In order for this trick to be pulled off successfully however, requires some clever plot devices to wrangle each intricate characteristic into a believable situation. Curt Siodmak was called upon to carry out this difficult task, which seems a logical choice as he had overseen a lot of the Universal horror movies during the time. His decision was to introduce a new character in Dr. Gustav Niemann, a mad scientist played by Boris Karloff in what would be his last role in the Universal horror franchise. Accompanying him from a prison break is hunchback (another trope), Daniel (J. Carrol Naish), who is willing to carry out Niemann’s demands with the promise of a new body. 

Niemann though only has revenge in mind for the three people who wronged him and sent him to prison. 

This story is really told in two parts; the first part being the revenge on Burgemeister Hussman, which Niemann does by initially killing Professor Lampini and taking on his identity as a travelling showman and his Chamber of Horrors. The show in question just so happens to contain the skeletal remains of Count Dracula with the stake still impaled. Legend has it that if the stake were to be removed, Dracula would once again walk the earth. Naturally this happens, but Niemann convinces the Count (John Carradine) to carry out his task of ridding him of his nemesis with the promise of protection. Once the Count offs Hussman though, the group land in a spot of bother and Niemann quickly reneges on his agreement and ditches Dracula’s coffin, forcing him to submit to the sunlight and ultimately be destroyed. Dracula’s demise seems all too easy and as such renders him slightly useless in the movie and far from menacing.

The latter half of the movie focuses on the resurrection of Frankenstein’s monster (Glenn Strange) and The Wolf Man (Lon Chaney Jr.) who were last seen washed away with the flood that submerged the ruins of Frankenstein’s castle. It turns out that they had been frozen in ice, and Niemann thaws them both, once again hoping to use them to his advantage. 

The film is aided by the return of Chaney Jr and the troubled Larry Talbot who continuously serves as the heart of the franchise. Here, a love triangle is formed as he finds himself falling for a gypsy girl Ilonka (Elena Verdugo – who was a descendant of the Verdugo family that founded Los Angeles), rescued by Daniel and Niemann. The former has also fallen for Ilonka’s charms and is then driven by jealousy when his love is not reciprocated, and also by anger from Niemann’s failure not to live up to his promise.

The climax is nicely tied up with a collision of personalities all vying for different means, and when that clash comes it can only lead to the demise of all, be it silver bullet, thrown from the roof, or driven into the swamp quicksand from angry villagers wielding flaming torches.

On face value, Siodmak ticks all the boxes of what can be expected from each of the characters but ultimately, there is nothing new to offer at hand, and because of this the film falls short on satisfaction. It is still a solid production, entertains, but never does enough to lift itself above the standards of its predecessors.

It was great to see Karloff (he definitely owns this movie and deserves to wield the lead antagonist mantle) and Lon Chaney Jr share screen time together, but the chance to have the creatures provide any form of menace are  squandered. 

  • Saul Muerte

Movie review: Gretel and Hansel

03 Thursday Dec 2020

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The story of Hansel and Gretel has gone through numerous guises over the years before it settled in the form that we know today courtesy of The Brothers Grimm, Wilhelm and Jacob, and their collection of folklore during the 19th Century. 

In fact, the initial story as we know it was told to the brothers by Henriette Dorothea Wild, who would go on to marry Wilhelm.

Throughout the years, there have been some common elements that have held true; the two siblings abandoned in the woods, the path of breadcrumbs, famine, the children’s inner strength and cunning, and of course… a cannibalistic witch. 

All of these features in Oz Perkins’ (The Blackcoat’s Daughter, I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In Your House) third outing in the director’s chair. 

Upon the release of the film, it was noted the deliberate switch in the order of the siblings with Gretel taking top billing and for good reason, for this is her tale to tell. It also ties in with a theme that Perkins likes to dabble in, that of the suppressed female, struggling to find her identity in a strange or foreign world. 

It also combines Perkins fascination with the occult and the dark underbelly that lay under the world as we know it, waiting to ignite from the spark of curiosity, ignorance, or both.

Taking on the role of Gretel is Sophia Lillis who rose to fame as Beverly Marsh in 2017’s IT, directed by Andy Muschietti. Lillis takes the role in her stride as a girl forced to come into womanhood by an oppressive society and is required to endure total compliance on the slim chance that her family will reap the benefits. Not willing to live this kind of life, Gretel choses to steal away from her family home and the lack of love and support from her mother, taking her brother, Hansel with her.

Here the familiarity of the story sets in when Gretel and Hansel try to make ends meet in the wilderness, and Gretel continues to abate her brother’s wishes to return. 

Eventually they come across the witch’s house and the promise of new things to come. The Witch (played by the magnificent Alice Krige) is both wily and manipulative, with plans to consume Hansel, but is equally enamoured by Gretel, teaching her the ways of her craft. Will she be able to convert Gretel into her domain or can Gretel turn the tide of evil and save them from their torment?

The Prognosis:

Oz Perkins delivers another visually strong narrative, weaving a traditional folk story with a modern mindset. Perkins is a director who isn’t shy from female empowerment in his storytelling and Sophia Lillis proves once again that she can delicately handle the subtleties of human emotion that bely her years. 

If there is a hindrance is that Perkins is also a ‘slow burn’ storyteller and provides a hypnotic snail like pace to his movies. His previous two ventures suited the atmosphere that he wanted to evoke, and in some cases it works here, but equally the tempo is so slow and drawn out that it can be painful and laborious to watch.

I honestly wasn’t sure if I would write a positive account of the movie after viewing it as a result, and yet it lingers with you, which is a testament to the director and his visual playground. 

  • Saul Muerte