Leaving Las Vegas

 

I like to run. Well, "like" and "run" are very loose verbs in this scenario. I enjoy exercise and the outdoors, and adulthood with schedule restrictions being what it is, I have accepted that trotting is the best way to maintain some form of health. I'm a chubby 42 year old woman with the legs of an enthusiastic corgi. My version of "running" is probably significantly slower than, say, an Olympian with a stomach flu who fell out a three story window (and by Olympian, I mean a senior citizen living in Washington's capital city).

I bring this up not to brag about my incredible athleticism, but to say that today's feature understands a fundamental truth about the importance endurance training: you don't have to be fast. You just have to be slightly faster than a resurrected corpse.

Quick Plot: Molly and Nick are the kind of couple you do not want to be driving next to when leaving Las Vegas. Drinking, fighting, and generally awful, they run into car trouble on a desert highway en route to an airfield where their pal is fixing up a plane to get out of the country. Why, you ask? A zombie apocalypse of course!

Nick is armed, but seems to have little experience actually using a gun. It only takes one rotting but well-dressed shambler to take him down, leaving the frantic Molly to trek 36 miles in the hot Nevada sun (and chunky boots with an unreasonable heel).

At least she's not alone. The same zombie who chomped on Nick is hot on her tail, but thankfully, this is more Romero-verse than Snyder-verse. All Molly has to do is figure out the exact pace needed to keep him a few feet back, scramble up a low rock to sleep, and continue on her journey. At least he's a good listener!

Like many a walking dead story, this one dives into the question of who the real monsters are, but it does so in quite an interesting way. I won't spoil the beats, but for its first 2/3rds or so, It Stains the Sand Red is the exact kind of zombie movie I love. It takes a premise we know well and finds an incredibly specific angle to explore a story we haven't quite seen in this context.

It helps that the movie rests on the very capable shoulders of Brittany Allen, who would go on to another great role (and composing credit) for Colin Minihan's followup, What Keeps You Alive. Her roles in the two movies couldn't really be any more different, save for how much they show two very different women tapping into some deep and clever survival skills. 

Not every final girl comes loaded with the engineering skills of a Nancy Thompson or perfect aim of Sarah Polley. Sometimes, the last woman standing is a cocaine-sniffing deadbeat mom who knows she's made mistakes, and has just enough perseverance to put everything she has together and soldier on. 

Colin Minihan has a very good track record to my personal tastes. He was one half of the team behind the great Grave Encounters and the full talent behind the thrilling What Keeps You Alive. It Stains the Sand Red came somewhere in between, and while it has a lot of the same features that make those two films so good (clear and specific characters, slight twists on familiar stories) the actual structure of the film falls a bit short. The movie feels like it's over at least twice before the last act, which makes things drag even with a brief 90 minute running time. I understand the importance of getting to that final beat (no spoilers), but the energy just doesn't sustain it. 

That aside, I still had a very good time with It Stains the Sand Red. There's a lot to enjoy, and the actual arc and conclusion are satisfying. I just wish it all fit together a little more cleanly.

High Points

Brittany Allen does not have an easy job in crafting Molly, a woman who can probably best be described as a hot mess and that's on a good day, but who also comes loaded with brains to adjust to the situation as it unfolds. The movie relies on her performance

Low Points

Aforementioned structural flow

Lessons Learned

Zombies are tempted, but not taken by the game of fetch...unless it involves tampons

Convertibles are not the best choice of vehicle during a zombie apocalypse

Cocaine is an excellent appetite suppressant 

Rent/Bury/Buy

I had a very good (not quite great) time with this movie. It's almost more drama/comedy than horror, so don't necessarily expect to be scared. That being said, this is definitely made for the horror fan, and I think most will find a lot here. As of this posting, it's streamable on Peacock. 

Hail the Pumpkin Thing

People who start playing Christmas music in April are monsters.

People who watch Halloween movies in April are, well, me.

Quick Plot: It's 1963 in Bastion, an isolated Illinois hamlet filled with cornfields and boredom. The town's big excitement for the teenage male population comes on Halloween night, when a vicious pumpkin-headed scarecrow named Sawtooth Jack is unleashed for a battle to the autumnal death. The boy who successfully defeats the monster is celebrated as a hero of the harvest and rewarded with the newest edition of a sports car  (in this case, a 1963 Corvette), ticket out of town, and home for his family, while the rest of the town breathes easy knowing their crops will thrive another season.

One year after his older golden boy brother Jim wins, moody Richie Shepard is so angry at his small-town existence that he decides to enter the hunt, even though he's technically exempt. Along the way, he falls for new-girl-in town Kelly, who also decides to break the rules and join in. 

Though we were only given a quick glimpse at the previous hunt, it seems as though this Halloween is far more brutal. The boys are locked up and starved for three days before the big night, presumably to amp up their aggression. This year, a lot of that gets spread past Sawtooth Jack to the local shop proprietors trying to defend their stores from looting. Sawtooth Jack is equally hungry and takes out dozens of teens, all as Richie and Kelly begin to piece together the details behind the tradition.

Most viewers will likely get there first. Dark Harvest is based on a novel by Norman Partridge, and probably has a richer feel on the page. I assumed that the 1960s setting was a sham, some sort of added The Village-esque touch to keep the population under certain restrictions, but nope: it's simply that director David Slade (whose work I generally enjoy) didn't get his young actors to channel any kind of past.

Dark Harvest is the KIND of movie I love, and I can easily say that I enjoyed watching it even as I found myself groaning at most of its choices. The bones of the actual story are good enough to make me want to read the source material, and I was never bored. But what do we actually have here? There's a dull romance that goes nowhere, an over-the-top villain choking on the scenery he's chewing, and a general feeling of kids playing dress-up. Every actor seems to be in a different film, which makes the rare moments of human loss fall pretty flat. 

David Slade has had a fascinating career behind the camera. While he's never quite made a truly great genre film, he's come close with Hard Candy, the better-than-it-could-have-been 30 Days of Night, and one of the best (and certainly best-directed) episodes of Black Mirror. Heck, even his Twilight entry manages to rise above what it could have been. 

That's probably what makes Dark Harvest such a letdown for me. This concept with a better script, and perhaps more time or a more experienced pool of younger actors that could tap into the time period, could have been something genuinely special. Instead, it's a missed opportunity. 

High Points

The actual concept and design of Sawtooth Jack is pretty neat, especially once you see him as the perfectly gangly teenage version of Trick R Treat's Sam

Low Points

It's hard enough to tell the generically slick-back haired boys apart in their Grease knockoff leather jackets, so throwing Purge-esque masks over their faces doesn't help ground any of the action

Lessons Learned

You won't find Jujubees in a small town

Nothing will put a teenage boy into beast mode more efficiently than three days without food

Your fighting aim will generally not be improved by wearing a rubber mask that limits peripheral vision

Rent/Bury/Buy

If you're craving an enthusiastically autumnal horror movie, Dark Harvest certainly checks a few boxes. I was entertained, but also extremely frustrated. Perhaps low expectations will help? Give it a shot via Amazon Prime. 

Thank You For Flying Delta

 

Sometimes, timelines align in such a way that you get to watch a film under the absolute perfect circumstances. I'm thinking of how I had just moved into a probably haunted apartment when I first sat down to be terrified by Pulse, or how I had to watch a (perfectly legally) downloaded version of The Descent on a laptop in such a way that I had my face pressed against the screen. I got to see the horrid Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull on the big screen in Moscow but with a British speaker dubbing over all of the actors' dialogue. It made a bad movie perfectly enjoyable in the most bizarre of all ways.

Searching was a thriller I had on my watch list forever, but it never seemed to land on any streaming site. Instead, something better happened: Delta Airlines had it on its list, and as I settled in for a six hour flight, watching a movie set on a laptop on a screen just slightly smaller than that seemed all too right.

Quick Plot: Remember how Pixar's Up opened with a beautifully tragic montage that followed the full cycle of a marriage? Searching does something similar, as we dive into David and Pamela Kim's laptop screen and watch their happy years raising baby Margot, scary ones battling Pamela's lymphoma, elation over her remission, and devastation when cancer returns.

Now a moody high school senior, Margot grows distant from David, who seems to bury his head in his project management career to avoid talking about Pamela. One day, Margot doesn't come home. David waits a little longer than he probably should to contact the police, but that's what happens when you don't really know your daughter anymore. 

Like The Den or that Modern Family episode set on Claire's laptop, Searching's point of view is David's screen. That can mean Facebook windows, cam communities, Skype calls, or occasionally, news reports. Through it all, John Cho creates a truly natural dad at the end of his rope acting straight to a computer monitor. 

Written by Sev Ohanian and Aneesh Chaganty (the latter of whom also directed), Searching is a tight thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat (safely buckled in, in my case). It's a mystery that by its very limitations, can only give you so many clues at a time, forcing you to be in step with David's investigation. Even when you think you're smarter than the movie, it packs a few more tricks to throw you off the trail. 

High Points

Having now seen several movies in the computer POV style, I know that it's not easy to keep the visuals engaging (I still don't understand the adoration for the stiff Host). Whether it's Cho's skills in front of the camera, Chaganty's behind, or the editing team of Will Merrick and NIcholas D. Johnson, Searching remains riveting.

Low Points

I had ONE detail gnawing at me from about 45 minutes in, but Searching's finale reveals that plot point to be an integral part of the reveal so you know what? I've got nothing. This is an excellently put together film

Lessons Learned

See, all you people who look at my computer screen and wince, SEE: having dozens of tabs open rather than clicking and backtracking is MUCH MORE USEFUL AN EXPERIENCE FOR EVERYONE INVOLVED THANK YOU VERY MUCH

Rent/Bury/Buy

I don't know that I'd say Searching is worth an expensive 3+ hour Delta plane ride, but it IS an incredibly engrossing and satisfying little watch. Maybe one day it will stream somewhere on land. When such a time comes, hop on.

Battleship, But More Boring

It's the end of the world as we know it, and this movie feels...blah.

Quick Plot: The year is 2063, and it's not a great one. Most of our planet has drowned, leaving just two unnamed continents above water, and both, therefore, at eternal war. 

On one side, four fairly apathetic paid soldiers are stationed on a base in the middle of the ocean (well, or anywhere, considering most of the world now looks like this). Relief is three months late, and hotheaded Baines and restless Sullivan are eager to jump ship at any chance they get...which makes the appearance of an abandoned enemy ship pretty kismet. 

Cassidy (played with suitable stoicism by Kate Bosworth), finds herself in the middle. She has a casual/maybe deeper romance with Sullivan, but also seems to carry some loyalty to the cause and their superior officer, Sgt. Hendrichs, a man who is fully dedicated to protecting their station. Considering it houses some kind of mystery doomsday device that could completely destroy what's left of the world, that's probably a good thing. 

Last Sentinel is, to put it mildly, a very slow film. A nice way of saying this is to call it patient. A more straightforward adjective would be boring. 

Somewhere in between (but tipped a little to the right), I stand with sad bangs.

Not every apocalyptic drama needs to be exciting or action-packed. There are some great ones that zoom in on a single human element or intellectual challenge. You can tell an end of the world story without a single special effect. The genre doesn't require sparks.

But it should have some form of...life.

Written by Malachi Smyth and directed by Tanel Toom, Last Sentinel is a serviceable film. It's shot well, acted quite competently, and has a production design that seems to be making a lot with a little. There's (eventually) a clear sentiment towards the film's end about its message. 

But by golly, it's very slow.

At a full two hours, Last Sentinel is not what you would call an "urgent" film. It ultimately does have some things to say, but it's quite a slog to there. Still, completists of apocalyptian cinema will likely find some satisfaction.

High Points

To my surprise, the actual "four soldiers of varying levels of commitment" interpersonal relationships worked fine, and the dynamics of having one female second in command while in a sexual relationship with the lowest ranked felt absolutely natural. 

Low Points

That being said, there's a good rule in storytelling that I'll sum up in full butchered form: the more specifically your characters are drawn, the easier it is for your audience to connect with them. Last Sentinel goes in such an opposite direction of giving its decent actors zero details as to who their soldiers are, making them such blank slates that BOY is it hard to care

Lessons Learned

I'm not a soldier, but I have to believe it's a standing rule that when investigating potential enemy turf, you do what you can to stay in contact with your team

Engineering skills trump sanity any day

Nothing multiplied by ten still adds up to nothing

Rent/Bury/Buy

Apocalyptic completists (like me) should probably put Last Sentinel towards the low middle of their to-watch list. It's FINE, but also very, very dull. Find it on Amazon Prime.  Amazon Prime if that has any appeal. 

And Then There Were Eleven

 

I'm the kind of easy mark when it comes to sales. Yellow sticker screaming price reduction that's still higher than the product to the left of it? SOLD. Similarly, when I get a free trial on ANYTHING, you can bet all my complimentary credits that I'll milk it for every last drop.

In case you were wondering, that's why yet again, we're here at the Criterion Channel as my 3-month membership ticks away. Zip up your parka and let's go! 

Quick Plot: A group of 11 teenagers are invited to a mysterious ski trip in the wintery mountains. With the exception of one pair of twins, none of the kids know one another, nor do they have any idea why they were selected or what EXACTLY they were selected for. The few parents we see are happy to dump their load off, even if the three instructors seem to be a little...off.

There's Gita, the long-haired sole female unwilling to take any sass from the teenage boy contingent. Wild-eyed Dingo seems like the kind of guy who fails senior year eight times to maximize his time bullying nerds. And of course, "Daddy." 

Up the kids trek into an isolated cabin surrounded by nothing but snow. Food--well, the good food--runs out quickly, putting everyone on edge. Then there's Daddy's sudden declaration that while there are 11 teenagers in the cabin, his list only accounts for 10. One doesn't belong, and Daddy insists it's the kids' job to identify the interloper. 

I don't know nearly enough about the political and cultural climate of 1987's Czechoslovakia to fully understand what writer/director Věra Chytilová is exploring with Wolf's Hole, but that doesn't mean I didn't find it fascinating. I went into this based on the Criterion Channel's description that implied it to be a satire of American slashers. Those elements are there, though there's clearly a lot more at play. 

The only real problem with Wolf's Hole is that it's an impossible movie to describe in a way to set any audience (particularly a genre one)'s expectations. Contrary to the marketing, this isn't really a horror film...but it's also not, well, any particular category. There's certainly satire and humor, maybe a little science fiction, and the bones of horror to put the audience in a very particular brain space. Don't go in expecting to be scared, but do expect entertainment...in a very odd way. 

High Points

I won't spoil it, but Wolf's Hole has one of my favorite endings to a movie in recent memory. I was NOT expecting to walk away from this feeling the way I did

Low Points

It was probably impossible to do with a group of 11 and such a brisk runtime, but it would have helped to have a little more differentiation between the kids (both physically and in terms of personality). I don't mind them all being kind of terrible, but I guess I would have preferred terrible in different ways

Lessons Learned

The weakest link is always left out

Put enough teenagers together and you're bound to have a food fight

SPOILER ALERT LESSON: the real trick to surviving a mysterious sure-to-kill-you trip? Never, and I mean NEVER, take that optimistic group photo before setting off. Our teens don't do it here and they're all better off for it

Rent/Bury/Buy

It's hard to say too much about Wolf's Hole without giving away some of its surprises. It's probably important to go in knowing you're not getting an '80s slasher or typical dead teenager movie, but at the same time, having those concepts in mind help enrich Wolf's Hole. It's not quite like anything else I've seen, which is always exciting. 

Another Dose of Compliance

 

In this (deadly doll's) house, we celebrate the work of Kyle Gallner. 

Pay your respects and hop in.

Quick Plot: At 21 years old, Randy Bradley hasn't done much with his life. He quietly toils away at a dour burger joint where nobody even knows his first name. His pride gets a minor boost with the tease of a managerial promotion, but the moment he uses it to stand up to a jerk of a coworker, it all tumbles down. 

Being humiliated is one thing. Randy is used to it. Benson is not. 

Played by the always great Kyle Gallner, Benson is the kind of guy you don't notice. Older than the teenagers around him but seemingly even less ambitious, his presence barely registers until it explodes into a shooting spree, sparing only the terrified Randy Bradley.

Written by Jack Stanley and directed by Carter Smith, The Passenger is a fascinating film that toys with genre conventions in ways that constantly make the viewer wonder exactly what they're supposed to be feeling. Is Benson a mere homicidal sociopath or Randy's guardian angel? 

It's a more complicated question than you could possibly imagine. Randy, played beautifully by Johnny Berchtold, has his reasons for living in a whisper, but Benson is right in some regards: he does deserve to give himself more. But Randy is also a good enough person to see past Benson's Tyler Durden-y philosophizing for its own inconsistency.

Having recently rewatched The Ruins, I can now enthusiastically throw myself on the Carter Smith train. The Passenger is a completely different film in terms of story and tone, but when you put them together, you can see so many of Smith's unique strengths as a genre director, particularly in how he's able to draw such real but deeply layered characters without much exposition or background. He seems to have a genuine human touch with his work, and that goes a long way when exploring something horrific.

High Points

For such a lean film, there's quite a lot going on in terms of what's driving our characters, but with the setup The Passenger has, it's still fascinating that the primary story at the heart of the film is how Randy Bradley has spent the bulk of his life in the smallest way possible because of such an understandable guilt over having hurt someone. It's not the kind of emotion that would normally get this kind of treatment

Low Points

I don't know that I have any real complaints about The Passenger, so why not use this space to ask a question that always makes me mad: why isn't Kyle Gallner a bigger star? 

Lessons Learned

It takes a lot of energy to hate a seven year old

Fast food has far more character than a food court

Even the smallest public elementary school needs better security training for office staff

Rent/Bury/Buy

The Passenger is not a fun watch, but it's a beautifully done challenge of a film that explores some very human issues. Don't go in lightly, but do go in.