MaXXXine (2024)

Score: 4 / 5

The third part in Ti West's radical slasher "X" series has finally arrived! No one was ready for A24 to so fully embrace slashers when they did with gusto in 2022. West had a unique, uncompromising vision. A sort of American Horror Story anthology approach to the horror subgenre -- X proudly paying its respects to '70s exploitative slashers and Pearl offering a bloodstained version of '40s-era Technicolor -- these films' aesthetics only enhance their otherwise complex themes of art imitating life (or vice versa) and the ways film impacts the lived experiences and desperate dreams of average Americans in times of social and artistic anxiety. MaXXXine furthers these themes while emphasizing the inversion of that: to what lengths will a young wannabe starlet go to truly live in the movies she so loves?

Enter Mia Goth once again as the titular Maxine Minx, the sole survivor of the events at Pearl's farm in 1979. Now, six years later, she's made it into Hollywood, though her career of pornography is no longer fulfilling her goals. She auditions for an exploitation horror film, The Puritan II, winning the part and thrilled at the opportunities it presents. Unfortunately, several other young folks (mostly women) are being hunted in the city of angels, and while we know Maxine isn't the killer, a couple detectives (Bobby Cannavale and Michelle Monaghan) are keeping a close watch on her. After all, the Night Stalker is active, and details of his gory crimes have all but petrified the city with fear; his murders have, however, mobilized the religious right, loudly criticizing movies and music for corrupting youth with Satanic ideas. 

West lovingly allows these elements to simmer in a hazy ambiance, stoking the atmosphere into a heady cocktail of garish neon lights, shadowy liaisons, and the sort of dusty grime that comes with dry desert heat. While he mostly avoids too much lurid display, he gets the sound and feel of the era exactly right, and a droning synth score feels transportive in the best way. Too many films and series lately have done "the most" regarding nostalgic, materialistic trappings of the '80s, and this smartly and beautifully sidesteps those pitfalls. And the endless film references make for so much cinephile discussion fodder that I actually ran out of space on my notepaper during the screening. These are films for horror fans who also love movie history, and West is offering boons for those willing to get on his level.

Additional new players make for a really lovely context, including Maxine's icy, commanding film director (Elizabeth Debicki) who knows the screenplay is trash but is determined to elevate it, and a threatening private eye (Kevin Bacon with a deliciously weird New Orleans drawl) who knows too much about her sordid past. These powerful new characters open up the "X" world in wonderfully inventive and entertaining ways. They also, arguably, limit Maxine's agency in the movie that bears her own name. Rather than taking charge of herself and her fate -- as Goth so muscularly did in the previous two films -- here, she tends to be more reactive to the big threats in her orbit. Perhaps that's an intentional way to remind us that with bigger fame come bigger restraints; where better to critique issues of celebrity and paparazzi than literally beneath the Hollywood hills?

But the exploitation that returns to her life with a vengeance is the real star of this film, not its final girl. "Hollywood is a killer" reads the film's tagline, and that's about the long and short of it. An artistically challenging and narratively satisfying way to potentially end the series, MaXXXine succeeded for me even as it made me hope for more installments. Goth has made quite an icon of herself, involved as so much more than actor in these movies, and West has finally broken into mainstream cinema in a big way. If criticisms of gimmickry or contrivances are to be leveled at this film, I'd hope they are couched in considerations of how to suitably conclude such a wide-ranging, intangibly themed franchise without some forced writing and heavy-handed direction. But sometimes the material also calls for that, and I'm eager to dive into this seedy glamor all over again.

Leave the World Behind (2023)

Score: 4.5 / 5

A relentlessly intriguing, engaging, and frustrating experience, Leave the World Behind is one of the most purely entertaining and provocative films of the past year, and I can't get it out of my head. Soon I intend to read the novel on which it is based and re-watch the film in the hopes of giving my brain some closure, but in the meantime, this will have to suffice. Unceremoniously debuting on Netflix in December, this thriller boasts some breakneck plot shifts, blockbuster visuals, and effectively gut-punching acting in ways that had me repeatedly gobsmacked during its two hours and twenty minutes.

To start with: plot and tone. I'll try not to spoil too much, but no promises; you've been warned. The story is essentially about a family in NYC who visit a Long Island mansion for a weekend away from their busy lives, only to have a series of strange and terrifying events occur that cut off their ability to return home or communicate with the outside world, indicating the onset of some apocalyptic event. Not "apocalypse" as in the literal end of the world, but in the sense of the revelation that certain unknown powers are taking over by force and the foreboding threat that everyone's lives are about to change, if they survive. The plot moves along swiftly, from credible threats to believable incidents, including the knockout of satellites and transit comms to the failure of ship and plane navigation systems, even to the spread of (likely) misinformation and scapegoating of possible terrorists or shadow uprisings. It's all a little too familiar a fear for us these days, and the film plays on the mystery to inform our suspense.

But the film is not always -- is, in fact, rarely -- focused on the macro picture. Rather, everything is filtered for us through the eyes and ears of the family we follow. Amanda Sanford, her husband Clay, and their children Rose and Archie are excited for their time away until, once at the mansion, the house's owners show up at night. Issues of class and race bleed into their confrontation: the Sanfords (Julia Roberts and Ethan Hawke, white) do not trust the strangers G.H. Scott and much younger Ruth (Mahershala Ali and Myha'la, not white), who claim to own the house but their story for why they needed to return doesn't quite add up. A power outage and some chaos in the city could perhaps be the cause, but their demeanor is prickly and sly; Amanda's latent racism peeks through in her suspicion and in her indignation at having booked the mansion for her own family's use. I was reminded more than once of the social anxiety milked to dramatic tension in the first act of Barbarian.

Writer and director Sam Esmail (Mr. Robot, Gaslit) knows about the cinematic language of post-apocalytpic movies and exploits it in what is essentially something just shy of it: a conspiracy apocalypse. This isn't the energy of A Quiet Place: Day One (to be released this year) in literalizing the likely end of humanity. This is something more like what we saw in Gareth Edwards's Godzilla, in The Purge films, and I suspect in Alex Garland's upcoming Civil War. It's something, indeed, that M. Night Shyamalan has handled multiple times, in The Happening and most particularly in Knock at the Cabin, which shares a lot of DNA with this film. Enough weird, threatening things happen that the characters are led to believe that NYC is being overtaken by terrorists in some kind of coup. But the film is less concerned with how that seems on a massive scale than in how those events affect the family and their newfound friends, their socializing and their hope, their ability to communicate and rationalize and cooperate.

Apart from the more horrifying elements of crashing freighters and planes and EVs, the film ratchets up its almost unbearable tension on the domestic level, and most of the film's middle comprises the interactions between the house owners, the Black father and daughter (and missing mother) who want to be home, and the house guests, the white family who lie to their children about what's happening and feel entitled to the house and its resources (because they paid for it, dammit). While I don't recall accusations of racism being verbalized in the dialogue, it is exactly this racial tension that electrifies each scene, often squaring Roberts off against Ali in riveting scene after scene. For an "end of the world" film to focus on home invasion and racism is an unusual gamble, and I found it a profoundly successful one.

Add to it some amazing cinematography from Tod Campbell, which would have worked better in cinemas due to his sweeping visual scope and his attention to endless production design details. Add to it Kevin Bacon in a bit part of an off-the-grid doomsday stockpiler who serves as the film's harbinger. Add to it a curiously detached feeling about death -- mass deaths are okay, but the deaths of the characters we know apparently are not -- and this movie shies away from what could be disturbing horror, settling for a much more standard, palatable stock thriller that is nevertheless very effective at what it attempts to do. It's a really extraordinary surprise of a film, not one I expected at all, even while watching! This wonderfully realized puzzle box deserves a watch, and then some. 

They/Them (2022)

Score: 4 / 5

Camp. As kids, we go to it. As adults, we sometimes do it. As cultured adults, we sometimes use it to describe or produce an artistic style. But there are dark sides to the word that we often overlook, including one that has gained notoriety in the last twenty years or so. Conversion "therapy," a means by which some queer folk try to (or are forced to try to) change, inhibit, or deny their sexual orientation and gender identity, usually takes place in private areas but sometimes in more public ones, such as retreats or, well, camp. The psychological and emotional horrors that take place at these locations and events has been documented elsewhere, and it really was only a matter of time before someone used it for art (or exploited it for entertainment, depending on your perspective). Of course, there have been other films about this topic generally, including Boy Erased or last year's Netflix documentary Pray Away. And now, finally, it's been turned into a horror film.

Unceremoniously dumped exclusively for streaming on Peacock this month, They/Them has been the target of derision and doubt since its earliest marketing campaign. Some claimed it was making fun of pronouns, some claimed that it was going to feature queer kids being tortured and murdered. But the film isn't those things, not by far, and in fact bravely addresses some issues much more articulately and thoughtfully than any documentary or op-ed I've seen. It helps surely that its writer John Logan, who also directed it in his debut, is openly gay in real life and one of the most prestigious screenwriters working today (he also wrote Hugo, Gladiator, The Aviator, Skyfall and Spectre, Penny Dreadful, and Alien: Covenant, among others). It also helps that most of the cast is authentically queer and being led by Theo Germaine (of Netflix's The Politician), who is nonbinary in real life.

Essentially, the film begins with a group of queer teens getting off the bus at Whistler Camp, a remote forested area with cabins near a landlocked lake. Basically Camp Crystal Lake, but with one crucial difference: these campers are queer and the staffers are either anti-queer or ex-queer. Kevin Bacon, returning to camp apparently, plays the camp director Owen Whistler, relishes his unusually terrifying role as a sort of cult leader. Charismatic and magnetic, he's also deeply intelligent in how to get under other people's skin. His opening monologue makes him sound like a not so bad guy, just hoping to help these kids discover themselves through intentional self-reflection and some minor guidance along the way. But almost immediately we see him destabilizing that understanding by reacting vastly differently to different campers, as if determined to create a sense of chaos among the kids; he madly respects Jordan (Germaine) and their pronouns, but then he shames a Black trans woman and forces her into the boys' cabin for "lying" to him. It's all arbitrary, which means he can zig or zag when least expected; he's horrifyingly dangerous, much like the gospel he preaches.

Which is saying a lot because really there isn't much bible-thumping in this movie as I expected. It's arguably a fairly secular conversion camp, which is even more surprising than usual. The staffers are the really exciting cast members, as they are pulled from other horror staples (much like Bacon), including especially Anna Chlumsky as the nurse and Carrie Preston as Whistler's wife and the camp's primary counselor. Both get some solid screen time, and Preston is especially terrifying in one haunting monologue. To be fair, the kids don't all get a lot of screen time either; there are just too many for quality development. But, then, films in this vein don't often give a lot of time for in-depth dynamism and resort, necessarily, to a sort of shorthand to understand characters; Logan knows this and uses it to his advantage, even though there are at least half as many campers that we never really hear or get to know. They are the nameless, voiceless masses who have been silenced and sacrificed by conversion therapists through the decades, and so their presence in the film feels at first embarrassingly awkward until it becomes chillingly realistic.

For two-thirds of the film, the horror is almost exclusively psychological. The counselors chip away at the kids' dignity until they can crack them open. They split the boys and girls into respective, normative activities; shooting guns and baking pies (yes, fruit pies, because that's funny, right?). But there are more insidious designs at work; the Barbie-like female counselor flirts heavily with a conflicted young lesbian, while the hunky male counselor aggressively challenges (and tempts) the masculinity of the boys, especially one effeminate Black gay man. There are two pairs of campers -- one female, one male -- with minor romantic arcs, although the male tryst results in a shocking betrayal and perhaps the most violent sequence in the film in which a crude form of electroshocking is used to torture one of the boys. the film indeed gets very dark, and there are endless triggers to watch out for, including offensive language, yes, but also things like animal cruelty and murder, physical and emotional abuse, and of course torture. But it also has its moments of light, as when the campers attempt to cheer each other up by belting out Pink's "Perfect" in jubilant chorus.

Well, then there's the final third or so of the film. The actual opening scene depicts a woman driving alone at night through the woods before getting murdered by a mysterious figure (it's, again, very reminiscent of Friday the 13th). This event is not revisited until the final act, when certain people begin getting murdered. Because the film was marketed (erroneously, in my mind) as a slasher, this development might be a bit late for most casual viewers. Because of the identities of the victims, it also becomes pretty clear pretty quickly what's really going on here. SPOILER ALERT: it's the camp staff who get butchered, confirming our suspicions that either a camper or former camper is on a path of revenge. Thankfully, by this point the plot moves quickly and the bloodshed is more a release than a buildup. It's a brave move, and one that would have worked better for me if not for the film's marketing.

I think what makes me sad about this film -- other than its devastating content -- is that John Logan directed it. Not because Logan's vision isn't specific or that his execution isn't proficient in its way, but because it just doesn't feel like a match between desired outcome and actual output. Logan's understanding of the material is without dispute; his approach to the aesthetic is somewhat less than inspired. It seems he's intent on simply telling the story as seriously as he can, and while that should be enough, it makes the whole affair really heavy and gloomy. I can't help but wish, in some small part, that someone like Ryan Murphy had directed Logan's material, someone who can alleviate (or enhance) horror with comedy. Or, if not comedy, then at least an awareness of this material's place in the genre. Logan makes almost no references to similar films (except Friday the 13th), which makes the film feel ignorant in a way of its own existence, like it's intentionally trying to exist in a vacuum. In content or style, it could reference Boy Erased, The Most Dangerous Game, The Hunt, Saved!, But I'm a Cheerleader, The Retreat, I Know What You Did Last Summer, or even American Horror Story 1984 for that matter. Murphy would also have dived a bit further into the pool of raw horror, sex appeal, and identity politics (which may have held the key for more humor). Instead, it's just its own curious project, a waking nightmare that is wonderful on its own but smacks of those elements that might have made it nastier, more fun, and much more important. As it is, though, it's a damn good film, and one that hopefully opens the door for more, similar, content. And preferably in theatrical release rather than on a wretched marginal service like Peacock.

You Should Have Left (2020)

Score: 2 / 5

You Should Have Left could refer to several things here. It could refer to Theo Conroy, the protagonist of this spooky little flick, who really should have left his first wife before things ended especially badly. It could also refer to Susanna, his new wife and Hollywood actress, who probably should have left their current marriage before starting an affair. Most clearly, it refers to the sort of Amityville-esque "GET OUT" foreshadowing these characters should have heeded before deciding to live in a rural vacation home in Wales that happens to be very haunted. Finally, it acts as a clear warning to us, its audience, that unless we are just looking for some mindless entertainment, we'd do better elsewhere.

In its defense, haunted house movies are awfully difficult, especially if you want to do something new and interesting with one. This tries neither, and rests happily on the premises of other, well, premises. Though this particular house is no Overlook Hotel, the story is only a shy replication of The Shining while the characteristics of the abode behave similarly to that iconic building. Easily the most interesting thing in this movie, the house is not the sort of pastoral cottage you might envision in Wales; its cold, modern architecture marries cool tan wood and sharp gray stone for a severe, notably not-Gothic atmosphere that even throws a few glimpses of pastel coloring in for good measure. It's quite pleasant to view, and most of the film takes place during the day, lulling us into a sense of warmth and safety.

But the house seems to be conscious. Though the haunting initially manifests as shadows that move around on their own, they quickly suggest a more psychologically-driven basis. Doorways appear in one shot but are gone in the next; characters measure internal spaces that are larger than the external structure allows; the shifting layout lengthens staircases and hallways or adds hidden spaces that cannot architecturally fit. And then, of course, there's the mysterious caretaker named Stetler who never seems to be present but is often around, and might be taking candid Polaroid photos of the new tenants. These elements, like those of the Overlook, suggest that the scariest hauntings aren't necessarily vengeful spirits to be placated a la Ghost Whisperer but are in fact places where bad things have happened, the knowledge of which torments and twists the minds of those caught within its walls.

And it's fair to say that, despite the less-than-original plot and themes, the performances of its small cast also help the movie. Kevin Bacon plays Theo, the much-older husband and father figure, who seems about as tightly wound mentally as he is physically. I mean, honestly, the man is gorgeous, and the salt-and-pepper thing he's got with his facial hair is hard to ignore. While he's no Jack Torrance, he is a writer suffering block; he is the older, jealous husband of a young woman; he is the father of a child who learns secrets about their family. Amanda Seyfried plays Susanna with surprising restraint, and her coy, seductive demeanor belies a strikingly acute awareness for the fractures in their otherwise happy relationship. Seemingly-happy, rather, as we learn. The filmmakers clearly understand these characters well, and as the house haunts them, we also become haunted. Neither we nor these characters are ever fully aware of what's real, what's warped or exaggerated, or what's fake.

The biggest problem for me, here, is that writer/director David Koepp has done this kind of thing before, much more effectively and beautifully. In Secret Window, he magnificently pulls off the kind of home-invasion psychological thriller that could easily translate to a haunted house, one in which fabulously inventive character drama married genuine terror on screen. Literary and witty, that film fully fleshed out its own complexity and managed to make perfect sense the whole time. Conversely, this new flick rarely makes sense, twists and turns often not because of character development but for the sole purpose of audience manipulation, and ends with a bizarre attempt at catharsis that answered few of the questions I still had. And its laughably bizarre quasi-religious explanation neither fits nor sits here. Not that horror should always explain itself, mind, but it should at least be interesting -- and consistent -- enough to allow for theoretical discussion afterward.

Patriots Day (2017)

Score: 4 / 5

One of Peter Berg's better films, Patriots Day stands as one of those disaster films that seeks to inspire and celebrate more than warn and terrify. In as much as it captures the terror and anxieties gripping the Boston area during the events of the 2013 Marathon bombing, it succeeds admirably. In as much as it honors the heroes and victims of the same events, it is bluntly heartfelt and reasonably sentimental. Yet as an action thriller, or even a historical drama, it lacks much heft or logic.

Perhaps, you say, I'm trying too hard to qualify or categorize a film rather than letting it be itself and work on its own terms. You'd be right if it weren't a Berg movie, Berg being one whose films tend to skate along by virtue of a) their ensemble casts who usually do very little by way of acting, b) their thickly emotional plots and grassroots-style dialogue (replete with often racially problematic rhetoric -- remember The Kingdom?), and c) a focus on spectacle and thrill instead of the drama of real-life stories. And all those exist here.

A huge cast is great, until you realize that nobody is being used to their potential and most of the action rests on Mark Wahlberg, who, by the by, is playing a totally fictional character. Why even have a historical drama/thriller that centers on a fake person, when there were so many real heroes during the events? To tie the strands of the film together? It seems to me that they are all bound together anyway, simply by nature of the situation and the theme of Boston community; any narrative issues, then, would be the fault of an unfocused script or a confused director. The rest of the cast is nice and all, and I love seeing John Goodman and Kevin Bacon, for example, popping in for a few scenes, but I have to wonder if they even help the film. A crucial message by the end of the film is that of "Boston Strong", the everyday heroes and nobodies who helped and saved each other. It's a little hard to remember that when JK Simmons stands out so well from otherwise indistinguishable officers. I wonder, then, if the film should have worked a little harder to fill up its dramatis personae with less stars and more strangers. It sure worked for United 93.

The film works as a thriller, no doubts there. A streamlined script cuts away most of the crap, and we find ourselves immediately in the middle of a small web of lives, preparing for the annual holiday and festivities. It doesn't take long before the marathon begins, and by then it's all pins and needles until the end of the film, after a brief but ferocious manhunt. The film, though it unfortunately spends far too much time on Wahlberg and his antics, does a nice job of observing the general paranoia and anxieties of both civilians and law enforcement during this time. And while the film wastes precious story time on action -- disparate images of violence and carnage -- it effectively provides an atmosphere and sensation of chaos.

I should mention a couple of highlights in the film. The ending presents us with the real-life survivors and heroes of the Boston Marathon, and while it is no doubt emotionally powerful, it is also difficult to swallow in a film so full of itself. Perhaps with less stars, less focus on spectacle, or more fleshed-out dialogue, we might care more about these individuals and relate to them better. Instead, I found myself distanced and a little annoyed; after all, if the filmmakers wanted to make a documentary, they should have made the whole film one, not just the last five minutes. Come to think of it, I totally think they should have just made a documentary. It would certainly have honored its subjects better.

That said, the two best sequences in the film came in surprising turns. One was delivered by Jimmy O Yang as Dun Meng, the student who was carjacked and abducted, and the time in which he and the terrorists ride together in the car are the most tense in the picture. The other was delivered by Melissa Benoist and Khandi Alexander as Katherine Russell and an FBI interrogator, respectively, when the former is brought in for questioning about her involvement. It's a brief but brutal scene, beautifully written and densely nuanced, and will leave you gasping for breath -- perhaps even more than the suspect.

It's a solid picture, and one that is sensibly aware of its importance and relevance. I had my issues with it, you'll have yours. And while it's not a "great" movie, it stands as a testament to the power real-life stories can have on us. Heroes that walk among us, everyday instances of courage and kindness, and community in the face of tragedy. There are much better films about terrorism, about Boston, and about the police, and there are much better ways a film about this particular tragedy could have been handled. But, as the film we got, this one is definitely worth a watch.

IMDb: Patriots Day

Black Mass (2015)

Score: 3.5 / 5

I guess it's officially Oscar season. Johnny Depp ushers us in with an early grab for Best Actor that is easily his best performance in years. Depp plays Whitey Bulger, infamous gangster lord of South Boston, with a monstrous intensity that transforms the character into a devilish force of nature. He disappears into the role, aided by excellent makeup, and transcends the film around him. If nothing else, see this movie for Depp. His chilling, bulbous blue glare is entrancing on screen, and he injects venom into every word he speaks.

The rest of the film is a solid crime thriller, to be sure, but not one I found to be very palatable. We are given precious little insight into Bulger's character, and indeed we are given only shallow and fleeting peeks into the plethora of other characters. Rather than appreciating the scope of the story, I was having trouble keeping tabs on everyone (not helped by the fact that they are all white men in business suits with thick accents discussing a lot of proper nouns that hadn't yet been established visually). The script is immense, spanning several years, locations across the country, and tons of characters; handled well, this type of script can be effective (remember David Fincher's Zodiac?), but here it buries itself in details and names and motives. Whole subplots come and go with seemingly little logic (whether the fault of the writer or the director), and the editing occasionally feels forced and awkward.

That's not to say there aren't shining moments. The performances are solid all around, notably in Joel Edgerton, who has to share several intense scenes with Depp, and in Julianne Nicholson, who shares only one scene with Depp that will probably give me nightmares tonight. Benedict Cumberbatch, Kevin Bacon, Peter Sarsgaard, Corey Stoll, and Juno Temple all pop in for a few scenes, which is fun if nothing else. And the lengthy, expository dialogue sometimes gives way to brutal gems, usually delivered by Depp, that often tore me out of my reverie.

Speaking of reverie, I should mention that Masanobu Takayanagi's cinematography is really excellent (he also helped shoot Babel, Eat Pray Love, Silver Linings Playbook, and State of Play), alternating between closeups of our lead actors' faces and grand stillshots of larger, usually remote locations. Though most images are in stark grayscale and in bleak lighting, Takayanagi frames his shots so that even an abandoned alley or the muddy underside of a bridge look as important as a cathedral. I think someone decided to pay attention to the title. Elegant and almost Gothic, his camerawork gives an engaging and hypnotic energy to the film that I found endlessly intriguing.

It doesn't have the heart of The Town, the sweeping grandeur of an epic like The Godfather, or even commentary on politics or violence like we might see in The Drop or Public Enemies. And watching it, I didn't really care what happened to these people because director Scott Cooper didn't seem to either. But as the last ten minutes came to a strange sort of climax (underscored by a haunting symphonic melody), I realized that the movie works in levels beyond those conventions. It's just an examination of a man's life. Gritty and bleak, the film makes us intimate with a gangster and his methods, including his liaisons with the FBI, and then leaves us with the weight of his sins (and ours, by extension) to contemplate as we leave. If the filmmakers wanted to undermine the cathartic and spiritual (confession/redemption) convention of recent crime dramas, they did so, and this black mass consistently piles on the heavy stuff with no hope for absolution.

IMDb: Black Mass