Bird (Kathryn Prescott) is your typical vanilla final girl whose friend Tyler (Davi Santos) gives her an old Polaroid camera from a yard sale. Unfortunately it’s a haunted camera–that’s bad. But it comes with film–that’s good! It also dooms everyone who has their picture taken–that’s bad. Can Bird solve the riddle of why the camera is so pissed off before she and her friends die?
Based on the teens in this video, they’re all done for!
Polaroid is a movie of few surprises. Basically, if you’ve seen one PG-13 movie about a group of cursed friends dying off, you’ve seen them all. We have tropes like the victim wandering slowly around her house, calling, “Hello?” and “This isn’t funny!” and “I’m all by myself and hearing suspicious noises, so let me go investigate my pitch-dark attic without so much as a flashlight!” (Okay, she actually says only two of those.) We have the love interest Connor (Tyler Young), the sassy best friend of color Kasey (Samantha Logan), the adventurous friend Mina (Priscilla Quintana), and her boyfriend Devin (Keenan Tracey), plus popular girl Avery (Katie Stevens). We have the obligatory old newspaper search (as well as a phone search), the visit to the character who knows it all, and Javier Botet.
Even the taglines leave something to be desired
The characters aren’t especially likable–even the SBFOC, who’s usually much more interesting and enjoyable than the final girl. The majority of Kasey’s lines involve some slight variation of “This is so messed up,” and “This is crazy” and “Yo.” (At least she doesn’t say “wack.”) The dialogue in general came across as inauthentic to me. And with each death, the kids get more blasé about the situation, until they practically let one sacrifice him/herself and take advantage of it. (Though he/she is the most obnoxious one anyway.)
“No cap, this photy is totes lit! YOLO!”
It does pick up around the end, once the mystery starts unraveling and Grace Zabriskie shows up. She can outcreep Javier Botet any day. Overall, it was entertaining enough. I wouldn’t say skip it, but you definitely don’t need to give it your full attention.
Hell no, I’m outta here!
If you’re in the mood for a serious haunted photograph movie, check out Camera Obscura too.
Luke (Griffin Robert Faulkner) is a young boy whose parents are in the midst of divorce, which is exacerbated by his mother Claire’s (Mary Stuart Masterson) mental illness. During a particularly vicious fight, he flees the house and comes across the corpse of an armed gunman who was shot down by the police. That moment of absolute horror is when his invisible friend Daniel (Nathan Chandler Reid) appears and invites him to play. All is well until Daniel convinces him to try to poison his mother, and Claire forces Luke to lock Daniel away. Cut to present day, when Luke (Miles Robbins) is a college freshman, and the stress he’s experiencing from his studies and his mother’s increasingly erratic, paranoid behavior causes his psychiatrist Dr. Braun (Chukwudi Iwuji) to suggest he reconnect with Daniel. Which isn’t the best idea, because grown-up Daniel (Patrick Schwarzenegger) is exponentially more deadly–and even harder to control.
Dr. Braun, you’re a psychiatrist, you’re Black, and you’re in a horror movie! Run!!!
It’s possible to read the movie as an allegory for modern-day angst and the self-destructive ways people cope with their inner demons. Daniel is attracted to Luke’s trauma, fear, and loneliness. Luke’s lover Cassie (Sasha Lane) describes seeing a shadow in his psyche, and wants to help him get rid of it. The central conflict in the movie is the battle between Daniel’s appealing but harmful methods of getting through life and Cassie’s unconditional love and acceptance. You could even argue that the title symbolizes the plight of people with depression, who are often told that the disorder is all in their head.
“You can lock me away, but I’ll be back.”
The characters are exquisitely written and performed. Miles Robbins is the son of Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, so he’s got major acting chops in his blood. Indeed, his performance as the fragile but determined Luke is heartwrenching. Patrick Schwarzenegger is the son of, you guessed it, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver. I read he was keen on the role because he’s a fan of Nicolas Cage and wanted to utilize his acting style. Don’t worry, he’s great. To me, he comes across a lot more like Christian Bale in American Psycho: gleefully insane and cocky to no end.
“I have to return some videotapes.”
Sasha Lane (no relation to Diane Lane) is admirable as Cassie; she starts out as a bit of a cliche manic pixie dream girl, but she’s smart and tough and refuses to let Daniel victimize her. Claire is hard to like, I imagine especially for viewers who don’t get how being self-destructive works; I wrote extensively on the subject of lack of psychological well-being and motherhood here, so I won’t bore you with my experience now. I will say that without being in Claire’s situation (I’m happily married and taking my meds), I can still empathize: being a mom is hard and being a single mom is harder and being a single mom with untreated mental health issues is hard as shit.
Cassie knows what’s up.
There is a fair amount of comic relief, but the movie surprised me by getting really creepy. Between the eerie score, the shocking visual effects, and the take-no-prisoners gloom of its tone, it’s definitely the scariest film I’ve seen in a while. Give it a look if you’re in the mood for something beautiful but disturbing.
A small town in Ohio is rocked by the kidnapping of two young boys. On the case is Detective Spitsky (Gregory Alan Williams) and Detective Greg Harper (Jon Tenney). The main focus of the film is Greg, his wife Jackie (Helen Hunt), and their teenage son Connor (Judah Lewis). The house is filled with tension since Jackie has, to quote Connor, “ruined the family.” Adding to the pressure is a series of unexplainable occurrences that are harmless at first, but soon turn deadly.
I came across I See You while browsing recent horror movies on Redbox. All I knew about it before watching was Helen Hunt, murder mystery, and creepy frog mask. I recommend going into it similarly unaware if possible, for the full effect of the film. It’s brilliantly written, intense, and completely unpredictable, and as I especially don’t want to spoil anything, this review is a bit shorter than they generally are.
Bleh!
A tiny gripe: I was a little disappointed by Hunt’s performance; I know her as a great actor, but here she’s stonefaced and barely emotes. Buuuut I haven’t seen her in forever, so I’ll take her how I can get her. Good for her for continuing to get lead roles despite being a woman over fifty in Hollywood. I could also have used a little more Erika Alexander; she’s great as big boss Lieutenant Davis. So here’s a clip of her from Get Out:
Oh, white girls. They get you every time.
Owen Teague and Libe Barer are amazing as well. The movie isn’t out and out scary, but it does have lots of spooky moments, accentuated by the lovely, eerie soundtrack. Okay, I will spoil one thing: THE HAMSTER LIVES!
Evan (Seann William Scott) is a social worker at a high school. He’s also a family man with a wife, Lauren (Mariela Garriga), and a young baby, Andrew, whom his mother Marie (Dale Dickey) moves in to help with. But Evan has a dark side: a la Dexter, he kidnaps less-than-moral dudes (in this case, the abusive relatives of his teenage clients) and tortures them before killing them. His compulsion begins to get the better of him, and Evan’s stable facade begins to slip.
And then Lauren makes faces like this
I had heard about this movie months ago, and wrote a little news story on how it needed more hype. After the opening, which features full-frontal nudity and throat-slashing in a shower, I was regretting my decision. There’s enough of that kind of violent misogyny in movies already. But then it cuts to Evan in bed with Lauren; when Andrew starts crying, Evan reassures her that she can go back to sleep. Now that’s a hardcore dad–he’s exhausted from a killing spree but will still tackle middle-of-the-night feedings. As he coos to Andrew, “I will never judge you. And I will never leave you.”
He’s a keeper!
Evan proves himself to be a kind and compassionate counselor (when he’s actually talking to the students, not just the murder part). Scott is actually a great dramatic actor (I don’t know why I’m surprised, because I never thought he was very funny). The filmmakers do a good job of making him sympathetic. We meet Evan’s client Ray (Sean H. Scully), who gets beaten to a pulp saving his little brother from their father’s wrath. When Evan drives off with the man for his comeuppance, he goes on a racist diatribe against immigrants, slurs and all.
“It’s not my fault I hit my kids! It was them immigants, I tells ya!”
Okay, I was even a little satisfied by the dispatching of the nurse (Christie Herring) from the beginning, since later in the movie she’s established as consistently rude and condescending. Her scenes reminded me of when I had my first baby. Newborns eat on average every three hours, around the clock. When my daughter took an unprecedented five-hour nap, I let her sleep. A nurse berated me for not waking her up to feed her. I was a brand new mom, insecure and drained, and before long I was bawling and feeling like a horrible person. (Another two kids later, I am secure in the knowledge that when a baby is hungry, he or she will damn well let you know.) In the movie, Andrew has trouble with nursing, and Lauren is upset and feeling ineffective as a mother. The nurse snaps, “You’re not doing it right!” and twists Andrew’s head roughly to Lauren’s breast, admonishing her that if Andrew doesn’t start eating more, he’ll be malnourished and the hospital will have to step in. Seriously, no one will be sorry–or surprised–when Mean Nurse gets it.
Marie. She’s a lotta awesome.
It’s more of a thriller than horror, but there are a couple of unexpectedly gory moments, like multiple closeups (director Henry Jacobson is big on closeups in general) of Andrew coming out of Lauren’s woofie. Or the scene when one of Evan’s stressed-out students tears a piece of loose skin from her finger. So it’s surprising that the torture/murder scenes are repetitive and kinda boring in contrast. Overall, it’s not scary and not particularly suspenseful; a passing examination of the principal players’ characteristics will tell you what actions they’re gonna take. However, the characters are still fascinating and the actors are magnificent–go ahead and give it a look.
In real life, The Banana Splits Adventure Hour was a variety show from the late ’60s to early ’70s starring four dudes in animal costumes: Fleegle the dog, Bingo the monkey, Drooper the lion, and Snorkie the elephant. They performed comedy sketches interspersed with well-meaning but racist segments like the cartoon “The Arabian Knights” and the live-action serial “Danger Island.” In the reality of the movie, the show has continued going strong to the present day and the characters are animatronic.
And extra terrifying!
In place of vignettes involving outside characters, the Splits pull audience members for a Double Dare-style challenge. They also have a human counterpart, Stevie (Richard White). Our main protagonist, Harley (Finlay Wojtak-Hissong) is a nine-year-old boy who’s very keen on the Splits. His mother Beth (Dani Kind) has arranged to see a live taping with the family: Harley’s stepfather Mitch (Steve Lund), older brother Austin (Romeo Carere), and acquaintance Zoe (Maria Nash). Unfortunately, this is also the day that the show is being canceled. Further unfortunately, the Splits have just gotten an upgrade that embeds the idea that “The show must go on” permanently. So they decide to give the audience a show they’ll never forget–provided they live to see it.
“Come on, you fuzzy son of a bitch!”–actual quote
I had never seen The Banana Splits Adventure Hour, so I read up on it and watched an episode on YouTube to get a feel for it. I probably would have dug it as a kid. The jokes on the comedy sketches are corny but not condescending, like when Fleegle gets exasperated at Bingo and Drooper for trying to take attendance at their club meeting by counting the raised hands of the attendees who didn’t show up. I actually laughed a little at poor Drooper trying to take out the garbage; it keeps flying out of the can at him. Here’s a random clip from the show if you’re interested.
I find this particular TV program a bit of an odd choice for a horror film treatment. Yes, we have the “beloved childhood institutions are secretly evil” subgenre, but who even remembers this show anymore? It’s not applying the nostalgia factor for standard horror movie audiences, which is around ages 15-30; it was made for Generation X, which is 1965-1979. I did read that the movie was rumored to be adapted from a rejected Five Nights at Freddy’s script, so that could explain the jump from costumes to robotics, but not much else. (Don’t even think about asking me why this American production was filmed in South Africa.) Teletubbies would have been a much more logical choice.
What even are they? At least the Splits are a clearly defined species.
The movie is fairly predictable. In standard slasher fashion, characters wander away and are picked off one by one. The victims practically wear t-shirts that say “I’m going to die.”
Abusive stepdad Mitch being murdered? Whaaaaa?!
On the surface, the characters seem pretty one-dimensional: Beth is worried about her kids because her first husband died, Mitch is a philandering douchebag, Jonathan (Keeno Lee Hector) really wants his unwilling daughter Parker (Lia Sachs) to be famous, internet influencers Poppy (Celina Martin) and Thadd (Kiroshan Naidoo) are really annoying, Paige (Naledi Majola) is defined by her job as a studio page (her job is her damn name!), spending much of her screentime herding people around. But the gender dynamics are really interesting in that the traditionally masculine and feminine roles are often reversed. When confronted by Snorkie, Zoe puts up her fists and says, “I’ll take him out. You guys run.” But Harley is a gentle boy who likes to wear fairy wings; he’s able to reason with Snorkie by appealing to his better side–and although Beth toughens up considerably to become a kickass action hero, his character arc doesn’t involve changing his personality. In addition, Jonathan is a stage parent, a role typically assigned to women. Poppy, a girly girl, gets some punches in. Paige is smart and resourceful and refuses to cower. Austin is sweet and kind to his brother.
Get ’em, Zoe!
Also on my list of kudos is that the cast is fairly diverse. This is Thadd and Poppy, in the front. A handful of other principal characters are people of color as well.
And bask in this rainbow of extras!
It’s not overly scary, but the Splits are pretty creepy–those dead eyes and lack of human compassion. The gore is certainly creative. Overall, it’s entertaining, with nice practical effects and great performances. Director Danishka Esterhazy gives it some style; my favorite is the scene when Stevie is drunk onstage and the camera twirls around frantically to match his point of view. Give it a look if you’re in the mood for some R-rated robot mayhem.
Dani (Florence Pugh) is a young lady who’s in mourning from the loss of her entire immediate family: her sister, while committing suicide by car exhaust, killed their parents as well. Meanwhile, her less-than-committed boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor) has been planning a trip to Sweden with his buddies Josh (William Jackson Harper), Pelle (Vilhelm Blomgren), and Mark (Will Poulter) to study their mid-summer festival. Dani decides it’s just the thing she needs and comes along, not knowing she’s in a horror movie. The rituals, it turns out, are definitely not for outsiders to enjoy.
“Oh, why did I ask how lutefisk is made?”
It’s written and directed by Ari Aster, who did Hereditary. That film left a lot of people angry and confused. I remember loving it, but I needed an explanation of it on YouTube to fully grasp the intricacies of the storyline. Similarly, Midsommar is not for everybody. For me the scene that crosses the line to unnecessarily bizarre is when Dani is wailing in emotional agony, and her new acquaintances join her, so they’re all screaming and crying. Aster is big on depicting grief, like destroyed by loss, on all fours and howling like a banshee kinda stuff.
There’s plenty to like, though. The cinematography is stunning (though the movie was mostly filmed in Hungary and not Sweden).
Maybe there is something to these rituals after all…
There are some truly eerie moments, like this one, when you can see the face of Dani’s sister in the trees:
It’s pretty gory, if you’re into that. It is about two and a half hours long, but I didn’t feel a lag or that there was anything irrelevant to the plot. Tension is built up right from the start, and sustained admirably throughout.
Okay, except for this scene–that costume is hard to take seriously.
One of my biggest gripes–and an admittedly shallow one–is Dani’s hair. Maybe her obvious dark roots are meant to further convey grief, but seriously, that’s exactly what films have stylists for.
Naturally I’m going to complain that there’s soooooo much white. Just a sea of white folks in the white-hot sun. Wearing white. Which is to be expected for a Scandinavian country, but if you think that critically acclaimed directors don’t follow that tired tradition of People of Color Die First, in this case you’d be wrong.
Each whiter than the last…
But overall I enjoyed it, as did my sister and brother-in-law, though none of my friends did. I feel bad especially for Hope, who turned it off after an hour but finished the last hour and a half after I encouraged her. She hated it. Give it a look if you’re in the mood for something artsy and gore-geous.
If you’re curious, here is the trailer with Aster’s commentary:
Loosely following the plot of the first movie (if you need a refresher you can read an exhaustive synopsis here, or if you’ve never seen it and want a quick spoiler-free plot outline, here are some), it opens with a rainbow of doomed teenagers (’cause it’s okay to bother casting a racially diverse group of actors as long as they’re throwaways for the first scene) who attempt the “Charlie Challenge”, in which someone calls the spirit of Charlie Grimille from the first movie.
Oh shit, he’s Latino! Run!
After the silly kids get their comeuppance, we move to our protagonist, Auna (Ema Horvath), an insecure aspiring actress who has only *gasp* two hundred followers on her YouTube page. (I know that’s small potatoes relatively speaking, but I have a grand total of thirteen subscribers myself.) Seeking more attention, she tries the Charlie Challenge. Her views rise exponentially, but Charlie’s ghost isn’t content with just making her an influencer.
The movie was made by Blumhouse (some scenes were filmed about two hours away from where I live) and released without much fanfare. It’s written and directed by the same team who brought us the first one, Travis Cluff and Chris Lofing. Unlike the original, it’s not shot found-footage style, nor is it a slasher in which a cadre of naughty teens are picked off one by one.
Auna’s sister Lisa (Brittany Falardeau) who’s a clothing designer; how she sews in this dim-ass lighting, I have no idea
Auna is sweet as fucking pie. She’s perky and humble and is reminiscent of a teenage Jennifer Love Hewitt. She’s almost unbearable at times, like how she’s obsessed with a character in a kids’ movie. She lives to prove her indifferent sister and parents wrong about her acting talent: “I have to show them I’m something.”
She’s too cute! Make her stop!
The movie has a real PG-13 feel. There’s a low body count and not much gore. As far as sexuality, in one scene Auna and her love interest Cade (Chris Milligan) sneak away from a party up to a treehouse–to run lines. There’s no cursing beyond the one PG-13-allowable “fuck”. Auna, I shit you not, actually says, “Oh shoot!” and “Oh, frick!” when she’s upset. Despite all that, it’s rated R for “disturbing violent content”.
‘I have truly looked into the eternal abyss. “Baby shark doo doo doo doo doo doo.”‘
One scene that rubs me the wrong way and also accomplishes nothing as far as moving the plot forward is when Don (Jonathan Worstein), a stereotypical nerd character, is being harassed by bullies for not having a girlfriend or something. Auna strolls up and pretends to be dating him, which causes the mean kids to slink away. How noble–the very thought of Auna dating someone like Don and not Cade the traditionally attractive jock? Fuck you, Don, you skinny asshole! I liked that scene slightly better the first time I saw it, in Legally Blonde, when it had Oz Perkins in it.
He actually does useful things in the movie, aside from super resembling his dad
I also want to gripe about (but not spoil!) the ending as well, which once you get there, if you think about the scene with the teens in the opening, makes no kinda sense.
Overall, I didn’t find the film insanely creepy, but there is occasionally an effective jump scare, no mean feat nowadays. It has some interesting things to say about contemporary online culture and the longing for instant internet fame. Check it out if you’re a young whippersnapper (or have one) who is just starting out in the world of horror movies and wants to test the waters.
“Wait, you’ve been in a DC and a Marvel movie? I love you!”
Will (Armie Hammer) is an apathetic bartender who finds a phone left by four college kids. He ends up bringing it home and becoming obsessed with it. His girlfriend Carrie (Dakota Johnson) pleads with him to turn it in to the police, as it contains gruesome pictures of murders as well as texts pleading for help. After Will calls the person texting, he’s informed that he’s been “chosen.” During a series of bizarre events, Will gradually loses his hold on reality.
‘Two girls…one cup…alright, this is gonna be awesome!’
The film opens with a quote from Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”: “It had whispered to him things about himself which he did not know […] It echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core…” One of the first shots is of a long, dark tunnel. The film’s image systems are comprised mainly of emptiness–and emptiness being filled with horrible things. The background story is that the four kids from the bar opened a portal to another world by messing with old books and awakening a “thing from the tunnel”. We find this out slowly, as the pacing regarding what’s going on with the phone is a delightfully agonizing slow burn. Even after the obligatory internet search, Will doesn’t come up with much beyond that they’re old Gnostic rites that involve human sacrifice. The filmmakers choose to downplay the supernatural elements to focus on Will’s corruption.
“Willie Mays? “WHO’S gay?!”
Will is–as Carrie calls him–a mock person. He’s empty inside. He’s pining away for his ex Alicia (Zazie Beetz), despite her having moved on with Jeffrey (Karl Glusman). He’s blasé about most things, caring mainly to maintain his buzz (you could make a drinking game of how often he’s seen taking a drink). He gives underage kids liquor without a second thought. He throws beer bottle caps on the floor, both at work at the bug-infested bar (you can guess how much he adheres to health codes), and at his surprisingly well-appointed home (which is all Carrie, we find out later). He wears ragged clothes and spends most of his screentime looking dirty, sweaty, and needing a shave. At one point, Carrie flat-out tells him he smells. I guess that’s why they went with an actor as ungodly handsome as Armie Hammer.
There are some truly grotesque and creepy visuals. I don’t want to spoil any, so here are some transcriptions from the closed captioning: “scurrying of cockroaches”, “skin squelches”, “distorted screams and yells over phone.” Okay, okay, I have to share one. Will gets out of bed in the dark to find one of the teens from the bar sitting at the kitchen table, with his back to the camera. He spits out a bloody mouthful of teeth and states emotionlessly, “We opened a portal. Something came and possessed us.” Then his head starts pulsating. It’s. Fucking. Brilliant. So scary.
“Carrie, maybe you should get some sun.” “No! Not until I’ve seen all the baby panda videos!”
There’s no comic relief. The tension is built carefully and maintained throughout. Three times during the movie I actually covered my mouth in horror–which is not typical behavior for me, it goes without saying. The ending is a climax of perversion, and when it ended, I felt myself physically relaxing. While the credits rolled I felt like I was catching my breath. Give it a look if you’re in the mood for something psychological, unpredictable, and totally original.
Don (C.M. Punk AKA Phil Brooks) is a disgraced former lawyer who defrauded his clients. He attempts to appease his pregnant and long-suffering wife Liz (Trieste Kelly Dunn) by buying a cheap murder house, with plans to renovate it entirely by himself. While Sarah works from their current home, he stays in the new one. Despite the house’s sordid past as a brothel, and despite odd phenomena like various fluids (black goo that looks like oil, red goo that looks like blood, and opalescent goo that looks…questionable) leaking from every socket, wall, and faucet, Don is determined to make up for his past mistakes.
Probably ought to start with a sturdy drain stopper–and a new set of curtains
Okay, I need to say it up front. Don is a shitty protagonist. Don is the manifestation of toxic masculinity: “adherence to traditional male gender roles that restrict the kinds of emotions allowable for boys and men to express, including social expectations that men seek to be dominant (the ‘alpha male’) and limit their emotional range primarily to expressions of anger. Some traditionally prescribed masculine behaviors can produce such harmful effects as violence (including sexual assault and domestic violence), promiscuity, risky and/or socially irresponsible behaviors including substance abuse, and dysfunction in relationships.”
Yep, this is the movie in a nutshell
Don is a pissed-off guy. He’s so determined to win Liz back with the house that he takes on the massive project despite not appearing to know anything at all about carpentry or plumbing. His main methodology is punching holes in things. He bulls around, losing his temper at the least provocation. My friend Bailey, whom I watched this with, guffawed with me at his ironic impotence at making basic repairs. In one scene he gets so frustrated that he throws something (I think it was a hunk of wood), and it bounces back and hits him in the head. I was constantly yelling, “Why is he surprised?” In addition, he cheats on Liz, not just in the present of the movie but in the past as well. He justifies the current event by saying, “I earned that.” Just how he earned it is unclear to the audience. Or at least I hope it is. (Right after he says it, the ceiling caves in, and Bailey quipped “You earned that, too.”) When his paramour Sarah (Sarah Brooks) is sullen about his sudden lack of attention, he threatens to hurt her.
He’s every inch the ladies’ man
HOWEVER, the movie was directed by a dude and written by three dudes, so don’t get all huffy at me about the filmmakers male-bashing. The second-most prominent gentleman in the movie, Don’s best friend Milo (Travis Delgado) is healthily manly–he actually shows up with tools and knows much more about fixing a bloody house than Don does. He gets angry when he finds out Don is unfaithful to Liz, stating that she’s his friend and he won’t be able to look her in the eye. In one otherwise out-of-place scene, Don and Milo go to a bar, and the bartender mentions that “Gwen Martin,” who teaches erotic pottery, is stopping by later. Milo is interested in this tidbit, and after being warned that she’s a feminist, he replies confidently that he is, too. Nothing else comes of it; Gwen never even shows up. I can only guess that either Milo is again being used as a counterpoint for Don and the less-than-woke bartender, or someone named Gwen Martin really wanted a shout-out.
No, Milo, not the basement!
It takes a while, but when Liz finally gets tired of Don and his delusions and goes to the house to check on him, the movie shifts to her perspective–and gets sooo much better. Not just because she’s a much more likable character but also because the house ups its creepiness factor by a lot when she gets there. ‘Where was all this earlier?’ I wondered. Like Don, Liz makes dumb decisions (like taking the obligatory slow wander through the house full of sinister ghosts instead of just getting the fuck away) but out of shock rather than pigheadedness. We find out the brothel had nasty secrets regarding its employees and clientele, causing one ghost to state, “All men really love is the power you give them.” Eventually though, Liz decides she’s had enough of everyone’s shenanigans. “Nope,” she says, swinging a hammer at an attacker. That’s using the tools of the patriarchy! Since the ghosts are mainly associated with the basement and Liz’s moment of truth occurs on the third floor, you could even speculate that the title refers to her instead of the angry spirit.
Stop! Hammer time!
There are several aspects of the movie that aren’t resolved or explained satisfactorily for me, but I came away pretty content. I don’t claim to get everything the filmmakers are going for. Even without analysis of its themes, it still has cool practical effects and is a pretty fresh take on the haunted house genre. Also, the house is mysterious, but exposition is handled smoothly–the history isn’t shoved at us in a big clump from an internet search. The score is delightful. I love me some “haunting cello” and “sinister rock”, as the closed captioning puts it. The use of ambient sounds is clever: “eerie whirring”, “eerie echoes”, “slime oozing”, “haunting woman giggling”, “woman moans echo”. Overall, I was impressed by it, especially once it hit me that Don isn’t supposed to be an admirable character. Give it a look if you’re in the mood for something entertaining and different.
For instance, what the hell is that? This isn’t from the movie, but it was too precious not to include
Annie (Meagan Good) and Scott (Michael Ealy) are a happy well-to-do couple buying a fancy house in fancy Napa Valley. The owner of the home they’re buying, Charlie (Dennis Quaid) is sorry to let his house go, as he lived so happily with his deceased wife there, but his daughter really wants him to move in with her. As Annie and Scott get settled, Charlie is there every step of the way, hanging Christmas lights, mowing the lawn, committing murder. Turns out Charlie is quite unstable and not ready to let the house go.
Who let early-’90s Anthony Perkins in here?
I can’t watch a stalking/home invasion movie without thinking back to the early ’90s, when this genre was particularly prominent: Pacific Heights, The Guardian, The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, Single White Female. The plots varied slightly, but the emphasis was on the danger to identity and material possessions and wealth: the white picket fence, the perfect couple/family. (And inevitably someone would be tossed off a second story landing.) More current examples that involve the same themes but are a little more diverse include Obsessed (white woman stalks her wealthy Black boss and pisses off his wife, Queen Bey) and Lakeview Terrace (Black cop stalks his neighbors, an interracial couple). Both of those and The Intruder are written by the same dude, David Loughery. The latteris the first of them to be directed by a Black filmmaker, Deon Taylor.
“Despite the constant negative press covfefe. That means get the fuck out of my house!”
As a guilty white person who genuinely gets tired of the sea of caucasians and widespread racism in movies, I needed The Intruder in my life right now. I loved Meagan Good in Eve’s Bayou, and she brightens up anything she’s in, from The Unborn to Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues. I enjoyed Michael Ealy in For Colored Girls and The Perfect Guy, and I look forward to his performance in the remake of Jacob’s Ladder. I needed a trigger-happy white guy with a red hat, who’s unwilling to yield what he sees as his property. I needed Mike (Joseph Sikora) the sassy white best friend (and his Black girlfriend Rachel, played by Alvina August) who puts himself in harm’s way just by being hostile to the villain. I needed a movie full of white service people.
I did not need a random homage to The Shining, but that’s okay
Issues of race aside, it is a paint-by-the-numbers style of thriller. The best one can hope for with one of these is little twists that make it stand out. This one does that for me; I don’t want to give anything away, but the depth of Charlie’s madness increases continuously and builds tension successfully. I’ve seen Dennis Quaid in lots of things but never associated him with being threatening. It took some time, but he won me over in the scene when Scott is showing him around the house. Charlie balks at their removal of an old tapestry, and Scott explains that Annie wanted a painting in that spot instead. The camera is close-up on their two faces side by side facing the painting; Scott looks on, oblivious, while Charlie’s face twists in rage for a moment–and then he gets himself under control again.
“Gonna shoot somebody…I’ll probably do it, maybe definitely…”
It’s not movie of the year, but it’s worth watching. Give it a look if you’re in the mood for something homey and inviting. Aaaaaand you don’t have to be a bleeding-heart liberal, but it helps.
“Annie, are you okay? Annie, are you okay? Are you okay, Annie?”
GhoulieJoe 