Movie review: The Little Things (2021)

16 Tuesday Feb 2021

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On paper, The Little Things boasts some pretty big elements.

First up the cast.

Denzel Washington, who always brings an essence of suave and cool to his roles without showing any effort at all. Here is provided the perfect canvas to etch out his craft playing deputy sheriff Joe “Deke” Deacon lured back into the sin city of Los Angeles with a potential serial killer on the loose that could potentially spark the same kind of fear that was drawn by The Night Stalker.

Accompanying him is hot shot detective Jimmy Baxter (equally hotter than hot right now, Rami Malek) who strives to put an end to the suffering inflicted by this seditious killer at all costs. 

And Jared Leto as the chief suspect in the two detectives investigations, Albert Sparma, an eccentric recluse, who is just a little too out of sync with the world that he instantly draws your attention. Leto’s performance is once again a stand out, proving that he can easily shift into the quirky state of mind and pull you in. So much so that he rightfully earned his Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild nominations for Supporting Actor.

Secondly, The style and setting.

LA will always project a certain amount of style onto the screen, with its vast spreading landscape and the golden charade promised at the lands west, but is and always will be shrouded by its corruptibility and dark past.
The city and its landscape slips easily into the neo-noir crime world painted by director John Lee Hancock (The Rookie, The Highwaymen). In many ways it is the perfect place to mould the dark etchings of life and shed light on the most darkened souls.

In doing so, Hancock is constantly posing the question of what drives a person to reach their end? Are we all blinded by our own pursuits to reach our goal that we fail to see the bigger picture? And even when we believe that we have attained our needs and salvated our lust for success and exposed our inner hedonistic tendencies and the narcissist that we believe lies dormant at our core, we simply get blinded once more. The circle continues as we spiral into the murky terrain.

All of these elements are to be applauded including some stunning shots by cinematographer John Schwartzman, but there’s something that doesn’t quite sit right that lurks beneath the surface of this incredibly lush and stylised story.

The Prognosis:

Yes we are lured in by the intelligence of Washington’s inquisitive mind combined with the fiery, passionate temperament of Malik, but ultimately the dots don’t join together and the plot doesn’t hold enough substance to grip you into its fold.
Instead we’re cast around carelessly from one lead to another and expected to forgive these missteps towards an admittedly bold and decisive ending. But by the time we’re presented with that compelling turn off the narrative highway, we’re too lost in the searing heat of confusion, trying to make sense of it all.

  • Saul Muerte

Movie review: Breach (2020)

15 Monday Feb 2021

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Towards the end of 2020 a low-budget sci-fi, horror flick was released in selected theatres and across VOD and digital platforms with little or nor fanfare.

Perhaps this isn’t really a surprise as we currently go through the COVID age.

Yet it does star big action hitters in Bruce Willis and Thomas Jane, so what gives? Is Breach a dud or a hidden gem, list in the midst of a torrid climate?

For starters, the premise doesn’t offer anything new.
Earth is facing extinction, so a spaceship called The Ark is about to be launched with 300, 000 survivors bound for a quest to start a new colony on a livable planet called New Earth.

To prepare for the long journey the survivors must go into stasis and among them is a pregnant young girl, Hayley (Kassandra Climenti. The father of her child, Noah (Is that really the name choice they went for?? Talk about obvious!!!) is not one of the selected so chooses to stowaway in order to stay with his family.

Whilst on board, Noah takes on the role of a junior janitor as part of the maintenance crew that are charged with keeping the ship on course while the passengers are in safety. Part of this crew is Willis as a mechanic called Clay. He reluctantly takes Noah under his wing just as all hell goes loose when two of the crew become infected with a parasite.

Once the parasite takes hold of its host, the infected soon become walking zombies, shuffling around (or in some cases leaping) as they begin to wipe out the crew one by one.

The Prognosis:

The effects are cheap and in some cases are passable, but the final creature when revealed is so shonky and unnaturalistic that it really takes you out of the picture but that might be being too harsh on a film that doesn’t exactly shy away from its obvious faults. The film isn’t about the special effects, which is a little odd considering that its a sci-fi picture and these days that element is highly relied upon.

Instead, it relies on the camaraderie of its on screen talent to try and win you over.

In that sense, Willis does his usual gung-ho attitude and chews up the scenery whenever possible, chucking out quips that are obviously lifted from greater films of the genre, but nonetheless come across as humorous in this case.

And when Willis isn’t on scene, you can rely on Thomas Jane to chew up the scenery more as the hard-headed Admiral. A man who lives and breathes the Army and just so happens to be the father of the afore-mentioned Hayley.

If your in the mindset for a sci-fi action film that may not exactly set the world alight but is entertaining regardless, then this will provide enjoyable viewing.

If it’s full to the tilt, action-packed, high quality that you’re after however… you’ll be left disappointed.

  • Saul Muerte

Retrospective: The Mummy’s Curse (1944)

14 Sunday Feb 2021

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For what would be the final instalment of The Mummy franchise for Universal Picture and its fourth outing for the shambling mummified corpse of Kharis, I’m surprised and delighted to say that it took an upward trajectory on the satisfaction front, especially following The Mummy’s Ghost, which personally was a huge disappointment.een completely blown free

Don’t get me wrong, the cobwebs haven’t blown away completely and The Mummy’s Curse has more than its fair share of creeks in the plotline, namely the obscure choice to move the location to New England because of its vast swampland. It also suffers from a strange and curiously long flashback sequence using stock footage which feels out of place in the film series.

Lon Chaney Jr returns for the third time as the titular menace and the storyline actually ties neatly onto the ending of its predecessor 

The film begins as a company is draining the swamps and along the way one of the workmen turns up murdered and reports of Kharis resurrected and on the rampage soon spreads like wildfire.

From here on in there are the usual tropes expected from the now well-trodden franchise. There’s the disciple of the Arkam sect, Princess Ananka transformed (this time played by Virginia Christie) the central target for Kharis’ drive, and the scientific, archaeologist hero at the centre of the fold.

There are some key significant moments that lift this a little from the quagmire, namely the initial rise of Ananka from the swampy bogs, lifting her hand out from its depths with an image that has now been so often reproduced. Also, Martin Kosleck’s (The Frozen Ghost ) performance of Ragheb, the backstabbing, lustful protege from the Arkam sect.

The central theme that seems to run through the story is one of wrong-doing, mistrust and broken allegiances that literally bring the house down at the end of the film.

There is some familiarity about it all which brings some warmth to the genre, and although it doesn’t offer too much new, The Mummy’s Curse does manage to entertain enough to keep the viewer a little interested in how it will all come to a head in the conclusion.

  • Saul Muerte

Movie review: A Nightmare Wakes (2021)

12 Friday Feb 2021

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I really wanted to like this movie.

For one it boasts one of the more infamous settings in Gothic literature, the stormy night that Lord Byron challenged his guests to come up with a story to scare and chill the soul. This challenge brought his physician, John William Polidori to come up with his novel, The Vampyre, but more importantly it bore witness to the birth of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.

With that kind of source material cast on the banks of Lake Geneva and set during the romantic victorian period you’d think it would be ripe with potential.

Sadly though it feels more like a blurred dream as director Nora Unkel strives to create her vision in a living nightmare.

The tone seems completely off and out of key, which is a shame.

If I can take any positives out of the film is that it centres on Mary Shelley’s plight as the mistress to the great poet Percy Shelley and the status that she is subjected to because of her position in society. Unkel expertly wrangles out the male chauvinistic attitude that was portrayed at the time and in some cases is still prevalent today. I found it interesting and indeed a bold choice to cast Percy Shelley in a dark light, where he was the perfect image of sentimentality. The brutal truth exposed, but could have been capitalised further and in order to capture the stuff of nightmare, could have sharpened the tools of doom and disaster.

It is during the aforementioned time that Mary stays with her partner, Shelley, her sister Claire, Lord Byron, and Polidori ata the Byron house where all manner of sinister things occur that she begins to hallucinate, drawing her fictionalised novel into reality.

These illusions albeit shocking for the time that it was set, feels too trapped in the romantic side of the Victoria Era and although it does draw forth the dramatic component of the free-living lifestyle that that led, it doesn’t tap into the darker side that the period became known for and sparked numerous classic pieces of literature as a result.

The Prognosis:

A Nightmare Wakes has the perfect setting and source material to pull from, but rather than rise to the occasion, it shuffles slowly along to an incredibly boring conclusion.

  • Saul Muerte

Movie review: Synchronic (2021)

12 Friday Feb 2021

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Back in 2017, resident Surgeon Antony Yee cast his thoughts on the Benson and Moorhead co directed feature, The Endless, and for the sake of not wanting to repeat his wise words too much, but after watching their latest outing Synchronic starring Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan, I’m left puzzled about the horror genre attachment to their movies.

Whilst Benson and Moorhead are a craft of their own, which is to be highly applauded in the way they carve unique and compelling storyline into their features, the signature genre should be more attached to Sci-Fi drama. The horror element is but a minor component to the grand scale vision that these masters of storytelling guide their audience through.

Anthony Mackie seriously owns this movie, no disrespect to his co-star, Dornan who does a decent job as Dennis, a married man with children. Dorman’s character is to be the solid, dependable one of the partnership, which is needed for Mackie’s Steve, a guy who can be described as a player. He knows his flaws and owns them, but interestingly has morals, despite his car wreck of a persona. 

Both Steve and Dennis are paramedics who stumble across a curious phenomenon among some of the victims or patients they encounter during their late shifts.

There are two key points that occur to the leads that fundamentally change them. For Dennis, it’s the sudden disappearance of his troubled daughter, Brianna. For Steve, it’s when he’s diagnosed with a brain tumour.
This latter discovery propels Steve on a mission to search further into this curious drug called Synchronic that seems to connect the strange behaviour in the patients and Brianna’s disappearance. 

Unsurprisingly, a common theme in the Directors’ work is at play here; one of time travel and manipulation. It’s Steve’s journey that casts him deeper into mind-bending reality by experimenting with the Synchronic drug in the hopes that if he were to succeed, he could prove his character once again.

The Prognosis:

This is no horror show, but a wonderfully creative and superbly shot journey that casts the audience into the core of humanity through time.

It infuses a Bringing Out The Dead with a Cronenberg-style psyche and injected with a visual treat from Directors Benson and Moorhead that confirms that they are leading storytellers in the film medium.

  • Saul Muerte

Movie review: Red Dot

12 Friday Feb 2021

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The latest original offering from streaming platform Netflix comes from the remote Swedish landscape to evoke fear into the hearts of its viewers.

Director Alain Darborg’s sophomore outing in the director’s chair for a feature film is built on a lot of potential and is strengthened by a solid cast, primarily its two leads Anastasios Soulis and Nanna Blondell who provide the heart and soul of the movie waiting to be ripped apart by the ordeal that they are subjected to.

Their characters David and Nadja hold all the promise at the beginning of the movie with David graduating into his ideal job and riding on the high, proposes to Nadja, who willingly agrees.

The road ahead soon dampens though as we are projected down the timeline to find out that the relationship is a rocky one. Nadja finds out that she is pregnant and is concerned about their prospects as parents, especially as David appears incapable of pulling his weight.
He does, however, try to rekindle their relationship by taking the pair away for a winter retreat, camping beneath the aurora borealis.

This is where their journey takes a drastic turn for the worse when they are hunted in the dead of night by a sniper, intent on killing them both.

The film has some interesting twists, turns and reveals along the way, some of it a little predictable and puts a spotlight on the misjudgements of character along the way.

The ending however is a powerful one and highlights the lengths that someone will go to for justice and righting the wrongs of the past. 

Despite some of its uniform approach to the thriller genre, Red Dot is still entertaining and keeps the upbeats up and the downbeats at a suitable low to take a breather from the action.

The Prognosis:

This Swedish horror thriller on Netflix packs plenty of promise but doesn’t quite hit its mark.

  • Saul Muerte

Retrospective: The Mummy’s Ghost (1944)

07 Sunday Feb 2021

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The Mummy’s Ghost would be the second of three sequels to Universal’s The Mummy, following The Mummy’s Tomb and would also see Lon Chaney Jr step into the shuffling bandaged corpse of Kharis.

Unfortunately The Mummy’s Ghost is by far the weakest of the franchise so far, which for me comes down to lazy writing. It feels as though the creative department were happy to rest on their laurels and aim for more of the same in the franchise.

In doing so, it fails to stimulate and to say that it runs through the numbers in the process would be a misjudgement, as there are a lot of numbers that Universal are happy to skip past to deliver the basics in horror for the time of its initial release. 

Once again we are greeted with a high priest handing down the duties to a younger member of the fold, Yousef Bey played by a suitably hammy John Carradine (House of Dracula). Kharis is still transfixed by the lure of tana leaves and tramps around for his latest fix while Bey tries to stick to his mission in finding the body of Ananka and return her to her resting place in Egypt.

Ananka however has transformed her soul into the body of another, Amina (Ramsay Ames), which puts a spanner in the works.

Time has not been kind in the passing years, and this feature feels stale as a result and if it weren’t part of a franchise would have been served better entombed in the past.

It’s one saving grace that allows it to stand out happens to be shrouded in its bitter end, with Kharis carrying an unconscious Amina into the swamp, where they can be reunited in the afterlife. This is delightfully offbeat considering its age, and I can only wonder how this came across to the audience of the time. It may have had a more profound impact if more care and dedication were taken into building up a more imaginative narrative to steer away from the now tired formula.

  • Saul Muerte

Movie review: Hunted

05 Friday Feb 2021

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Directed by Vincent Parranaud, who also co-wrote the screenplay alongside Alexandre Perrier, Hunted stars Lucie DeBay and is currently available on Shudder.

The film may speak on a very average sense, but there are some elements that I did enjoy.

While it does tap into that thriller element that we see all too often, with a woman being hunted, or the victim, or being chased down by either serial killers or someone planning to do ill.

Hunted taps into these themes in a big way.

Lucie DeBay plays the central character, Eve, where we get two guys who accost her when they trick her into getting into their car and end up in the woods.

From here all manner of stuff arises as the film becomes a story of survival.

What I kind of like about the film is that it’s basically The Little Red Riding Hood story inverted with a lot of the story elements coming to the fore.

The character Eve wears red throughout most of the movie.

The woods obviously ties in really nicely which includes a twist on the woodcutter component that comes into that fairy tale.

Obviously the biggest image at play is the wolf, which at first comes across as the men, but there is this dog-like energy that comes across the movie and propels the narrative to a bitter and frenzied conclusion.

The Prognosis:

I like these elements that Parranaud plays with which slightly elevates it above the average movie.

  • Saul Muerte

Movie review: Shadow In The Cloud

05 Friday Feb 2021

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Probably one of the most surprising hits for me so far in 2021 comes Shadow In The Cloud, directed by Roseanne Liang, and starring Chloe Grace Moretz (Let Me In, Carrie).

The reason I was surprised is because on face value it comes across as quite cheesy, particularly if you’re judging from the trailer.
What I liked however, (Maybe the surprise factor doesn’t come in when you know that writing duties alongside Liang for this film was Max Landis. Obviously he’s the son of famous director John Landis – An American Werewolf In London.) there’s a lot of great humour in this film.

The premise of this film which is set in World War 2, sees Moretz play an Air Force Woman, Maude Garrett, who’s on a strange mission, which we’re not too privy about from the beginning. Garrett is supposedly carrying secret documents and ends up on flight from Auckland to Samoa. 

The problem arises with suspicion centred around Garrett’s character, and who she really is, highlighted by the improper manner in which she gets onto the plane. 

Not only that, things become more sour when it is discovered that there is a gremlin that has some stowed on board. This gremlin for good or ill, serves as a great metaphor for harbouring secrets, disillusionment and distrust among the crew. 

The more this is heightened and comes to the surface, the more the gremlin pulls apart the machinery and causes great drama. 

Primarily though, this is a story of female empowerment; imprisoned against her will, her skills and abilities constantly questioned, and treated like a sex object, until the shit hits the fan, and Garrett could potentially be the one person to save them.

The Prognosis:

It’s a great little piece. 
I love the humour of it.
Moretz for me, never fails when she performs on screen. I think she’s a solid, solid actress.
The energy and the feel of this film makes this for me a real surprise hit and i highly commend Liang’s directorial style.

  • Saul Muerte

Movie review: Wrong Turn (2021)

05 Friday Feb 2021

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When it was announced that there would be a remake/reboot of the early 2000s horror feature, Wrong Turn was set for a release, I have to admit that I was a little skeptical, more that I presumed we would be presented with yet another bunch of teens lost in the woods, fighting for survival against a group of mutant hillbillies in the backcountry of the States.

It was also a little surprising that this is actually the 7th installment of the franchise.

Don’t get me wrong. I kind of dug the original feature despite its numerous faults, which were all the more obvious upon re-watching ahead of the 2021 version.

I mean, that may have a lot to do with the casting of Eliza Dusku. And yes, I was always a Faith fan more than Buffy. Sorry folks. Also Desmond Harrington was doing the whole smouldering, moody thing, way before he was eventually cast in Dexter and made it even more his thing.

All this aside, I was pleasantly surprised by the way the 2021 version was presented that ticked the box of a successful sequel.

It managed to stay true to the premise of the original feature and the folklore set around it, whilst providing a whole new slice of survival pie that marked a successful entry into the franchise.

Director Mike P Nelson delivers a solid feature film, learning from his predecessor, The Domestics and centring on the core theme of a battle of survival at all costs.

The manner in which the narrative is presented also goes against the grain of the usual tropes, (which is a good thing in this instance) as we’re introduced to Scott (Matthew Modine – Stranger Things) arriving at a small country town on the outskirts of the Appalachian Trail in search of his daughter, Jen (Charlotte Vega – The Lodgers), who has been missing some two weeks hence.

This method of storytelling allows the audience to not only engage with Scott as a character, but also outlines the guarded nature of the local people, prejudicing us against them and their ‘backward’ ways from the get-go.

Nelson then bravely pushes our preconceptions and forces us to confront them and question not only our morals but our position on communities as a whole.

So quickly we jump to conclusions or presume something of a particular person or group of people before understanding their position, and in doing so, leads to an amount of trouble, aggression, and in this case, bloody revenge on all sides.

Nelson soon casts us among the group of youths, including Jen and straight away challenges our current in build misconceptions around gender and equality, before eventually thrusting us down the rabbit hole of misgivings.

We see these youths as outcasts among the local community, but are equally highlighted as the outcasts among the group with the greater society. There’s the Black American, Darius, whose skin colour has led him and his generations to have been ostricised over hundreds of years, and then the gay couple, Luis and Gary, who have also been oppressed. The trouble is that despite a decent amount of attention laid down on the bones of the plot, it’s a shame that not enough was paid to the depth of the characters. The closest we get for a multi-dimensional evolution comes in Adam (Dylan McTee – The Wind) who at first is your typical red-blooded alpha male, but at one stage shows a human side, before unfortunately resorting back to type.
These misconceptions drive the group deep into the heart of America’s wilderness and foundations, where they come face to face with a group of America’s descendents of their founding settlers who carved a new walk of life away from the world to form their own community. When these two worlds collide, both belief systems are challenged leading to a bloody and brutal path that leads to an unknown horizon. 

The Prognosis:

Mike P Nelson directs the unimaginable; a decent and well crafted movie that strengthens and supports the original movie, while still delivering a strong independent movie of its own.

It breaks the rules and conventions of your standard horror tropes and for that it must be commended.

Plus, it projects some delightfully confronting images for horror enthusiasts that leave you wincing, and serves this with some sharp, thoughtful insights into human conditioning and the impact that communities have on the psyche.

The wrong turns are not necessarily the wrong ones, but they will force you into action.

It’s biggest stumbling block comes in the lack of depth in the characters though, who deserved greater attention for the subject matter to truly have a lasting impact.

  • Saul Muerte