Femme (2024)

Score: 5 / 5

Possibly the most frustrating and challenging movie of the year (technically it was released in Britain in late 2023, but it wasn't available in the US until 2024), Femme has haunted my waking mind since entering my unsuspecting eyeballs. I've watched it three times already and still it plays hard-to-get, like a peripatetic snowflake in a warm updraft. With erotic thrillers, sometimes we get what we expect and want: satisfying sex that turns into a domestic or romantic nightmare. Sometimes we get what we need out of what we expect: taboo sex that doesn't punish its participants beyond what they can handle and they (and we) grow from it (see Babygirl, also out in 2024). And then there are those complex little puzzle boxes that break open several taboo seals while offering insight that refuses to moralize or condemn, forcing us to engage in a wholly different way. This is Femme. 

Opening with what could be a less glamorous spin-off of Pose across the pond, Femme refers to entertainer Jules, a tall, thin, Black man who performs as a beautiful drag queen in East London. One night, after performing, he goes out to the alley for a smoke and notices a rather butch white guy checking him out, who quickly flees. Going down the block for a new pack, Jules encounters this stranger again in the midst of a small gang of ruffians, crudely mocking and threatening Jules in the store. Jules responds to their homophobic slurs by mentioning the one who checked him out, which leads to him violently and brutally assaulting Jules in the alley while one of his friends records it online. It would seem that this fag has been roundly smoked.

The film skips ahead three months, as Jules recovers in ways that are surely not healthy but that are distinctly recognizable in a post-Covid world. He's become reclusive, rarely leaving his apartment, much to the concern and consternation of his beloved friends Toby and Alicia; he wears baggy, more "masc" clothes, uses no makeup, leaves his hair in a messy updo, and acts more stereotypically masculine even in the privacy of his own home while playing video games to no end. But, prompted by his friends to go out and try living, Jules takes a venture to a bathhouse. It's worth noting here that someone outside of the queer community may not understand or appreciate Jules's actions for the early parts of this film, which doesn't waste its time on explanations or exposition; you really just have to take it for what it is and, if something doesn't quite make sense to you, ask a queer person about it later. Bathhouses (or any queer spaces) are not innately threatening or scary places, so let's do away with those judgment calls, okay?

Lo and behold, Jules encounters, quite by chance, the same man who attacked him. In the bathhouse. He's still clearly a live wire, swinging more slurs until he leaves. Jules follows him into the locker room, where they make eyes at each other. Then the man orders Jules to continue following him outside. It's a riveting sequence, a bizarre roulette game of body language and tumultuous emotional charges, especially for Jules, who seems to think that this man doesn't recognize him from three months prior, but still isn't sure if he's going to attack again or on what grounds. But Jules also sees an opportunity here, unclear at first if it's for an adrenaline rush or proof of self-reliance or something more sinister; it doesn't take long before we see Jules plotting his revenge.

Written and directed by Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping, Femme takes most of its time exploring the fraught dynamics between Jules and his attacker, Preston, because indeed the white boy gets hooked by Jules's savvy demeanor, submissive bent, and of course his beauty. Their dynamic is innately perilous, as Preston's gang of criminal young men are about as toxically masculine imaginable and the closeted Preston is terrified of anyone discovering his proclivities. Unfortunately, that means Preston tends to lash out at anyone questioning his social dominance or implying any fruit in his cake, so to speak. But, in developing a relationship with Jules, Preston begins to change. It scares him. It should scare Jules, too, who moves rather quickly to force certain plot points to happen before Preston is fully aware of himself.

It's all a delicate and dangerous dance, so thankfully these filmmakers have two incredible actors to feature. Nathan Stewart-Jarrett carries the film with remarkably deft technique, naturalizing the mannerisms of his character in endlessly believable ways to the extent that I occasionally forgot this wasn't a documentary and Jules isn't a real person. George MacKay, on the other hand, is more recognizable to me, but his characterization of Preston is brave and insightful to the extent that, while watching, I started getting flashbacks to people who have bullied me because of the ways they bully themselves. The film is a character case study, and these actors deserve accolades for their performances.

But the filmmakers deserve them, too, and rarely are films with such topical and specific content this beautifully crafted or this challenging to experience. Slick and grungy at the same time, stylish and tense, the lighting and cinematography (James Rhodes) push us into realms of a somewhat surreal demimonde, awash in vibrant club colors and the intimacy of a warm candlelit bath, always visually representing Jules's emotional and spiritual state. Femme takes a fresh, hard look at violence against queer folks and boldly imagines a fantasy in which vengeance is not only possible but almost too easy. But this isn't quite Promising Young Woman, and I don't think Jules's characterization in particular allows us to view any character as a stock type, especially not an avenging angel. Can two wrongs make a right? This film sidesteps such moralizing, preferring to pose more questions about how hatred and violence and passion and love and sex combine into a heady cocktail of moral ambivalence and dangerous liaisons. If I had a complaint about the movie, it would be that the film only concerns itself with queer pain rather than queer joy, but that assessment says more about me than the film as it also ignores the elements of the film that are, in some ways, joyful and affirming. And, in case you're confused by my meandering, be aware that the conclusion of this film is so unexpected and raw that it will also upset your ability to glean easy meaning.

Azrael (2024)

Score: 4 / 5

Sometimes the most rewarding viewing experiences are those about which you know nothing at all before entering a darkened theater. You're there for whatever the storyteller throws at you, and if the filmmakers have succeeded, you'll be swept into another form of consciousness. So, when out of the state and alone for the evening, I stumbled into a cinema with two brand-new horror flicks about which I knew nothing, I grabbed some mini bottles of Jack Daniels and smuggled them in to mix with a Coke, settled into a soft leather recliner, and prepared for a double feature with myself and no one else in the auditorium. In small town Appalachia, Friday nights are for the football games.

First up was Azrael, and the opening hits like a brick wall. Onscreen text sets the stage: many years after the Rapture -- "holy fuck," said I, downing one of the mini bottles before it could pour into the cup -- some of those left behind have been driven to renounce the sin of speech. What? Conservative apocalyptic fiction notwithstanding, this opening text forces far too many questions for its own good. Assuming that the film is referencing an evangelically dubious version of the supposed catalyst for the end of the world, who exactly is "driving" people to stop talking? Since when is speech sinful? And why would that particular sin take precedence over, let's say, mass murder, ritualistic homicide, irresponsible use of finite resources, or inhospitality to strangers?

Before we're able to cogently articulate these gaping concerns, we are thrust into one of the most interesting and strange movies I've seen all year. A young man and woman, clearly in love, wander a forest with some underlying tension. They don't speak, but they are mildly frustrated with each other, communicated through stern looks and vague gestures (one wonders, not for the first time, why over the years since the population instantly halved, a better means of communication wasn't learned? Like, I don't know, sign language?). Something dangerous in the forest is drawn by noise and motion (and possibly fire?), so the couple are pretty quiet and still, if not as rigidly enforced as the survivors in A Quiet Place. Without much warning -- or any context -- other humans burst upon them, Mad Max-style, rounding them up and knocking them out.

Like that, the woman played by Samara Weaving (according to the credits, the character's name is Azrael) is taken by a menacing older woman (some kind of grim enforcer of a cult's woodland compound) and made into an attempted sacrifice to the dangerous thing in the woods. Again, there is a lot happening very quickly in the start of this film, but my understanding is that Azrael and her man had either been exiled from this compound or had recently escaped to live alone in the woods. It also seems that the cult surgically cuts vocal cords of its devotees, as the main characters' lack of speaking is revealed later to not be a choice. For whatever reason, the cultists decided to use them as sacrifices, hence the capturing. Now, as Azrael is bound in a chair while the cultists turn their back and breathe rhythmically in some bizarre ritual, a blackened demonic humanoid creature materializes from the forest and lumbers toward her. Barely escaping, Azrael attacks one of her captors to distract the monster and flee. 

I won't share many more specifics about the plot, because this film is a wild ride of breakneck action and some really effectively disturbing sequences. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time, completely unsure what was going to happen next. Weaving works hard to sell this material, and her physicality has only improved in the somewhat similarly themed (and similarly gory) breakout hit Ready or Not. Her fight to survive though all hell has broken loose around her is a riveting journey to behold, even when it seems her endurance is a bit superhuman. Clearly, she wasn't named after an archangel for no reason, particularly an archangel associated with death. It eventually becomes clear that she's not just looking for escape; she's looking for revenge.

Riddled with religious imagery -- and plenty of subtextual thematic concerns about religion and womanhood and sacrifice and suffering -- the film's questionable plot devices might give some viewers pause. Why, exactly, the female leaders of this cult want to sacrifice Azrael and only Azrael might be an unanswered, mysterious MacGuffin, but it's never less than compelling. The film isn't a treatise on how to craft apocalyptic fiction or an exercise in thorough worldbuilding. It's an extended violent cat-and-mouse game that, for whatever aesthetic reasons, is placed in a weirdly specific setting. And it's fabulous in doing just that!

Apart from several other movie references and genre conventions -- including a Virgin Mary-like cult leader who is pregnant with, presumably, Rosemary's baby; including folk horror a la The Wicker Man or The Ritual -- the film's internal logic was only lost on me regarding the demonic monsters. At first I wondered if they were drawn to fire because they wanted it, but it does seem to also hurt them; more importantly, their appearance is that of having been injured by fire beneath their charred and crispy skin. Perhaps meant to be straight from hell, or perhaps meant to look this way after prior conflicts with the cult, the monsters also move in unpredictable and seemingly contradictory ways, sometimes shuffling along like undead sloths and sometimes sprinting like zombies in modern video games. Sometimes they are drawn to fire -- but apparently not within the compound -- and sometimes they are completely blind if you don't move. These inconsistencies will frustrate some viewers obsessed with worldbuilding, but they're easy enough if you assume (rightly, I think) that the filmmakers have answers for these quite natural changes (after all, no human is homogenous in this film, so why should the non-humans be thus?) that, due to their own imposed conventions, they just cannot tell us.

Inconsistencies like these weren't enough to derail my viewing experience, which was as thrilling as it was entertaining. Interspersed in the film were apparent chapter breaks with scriptural text, foreshadowing what is to come, tonally, but they were so fast and I was so engrossed that I didn't take notes to see if they were, in fact, biblical quotes, or if they were only meant to convey that flavor. Again, this is not the kind of movie where those details matter, especially not during a first watch. Weaving underscores her rightful title as a scream queen, and utterly impressed me with her physical prowess. The film's unrelenting action and horror made this a jolting exercise in frisson I'm eager to endure again soon. But next, the second part of my double feature: Bagman.

Candyman (2021)

Score: 5 / 5

As is now in vogue, we've been blessed with another remake that's actually a sequel but uses the same name and ignores previous sequels in its franchise. This time, it's Candyman, and it's bloody terrifying. Beginning twenty-seven years after the original 1992 film, we're introduced to Troy as he tells a spooky story. Bringing his audience -- including us -- up to speed on the lore, he recounts the events of the first film, when Helen Lyle (Virginia Madsen) lost her life in an evil night of blood and fire; in describing her as mentally ill and wicked, we see right away the power of folktales and urban legends. As Lyle studied the phenomenon of an urban legend, she herself has now become one. Interestingly, her story is entertainingly retold around an upper-class apartment in Chicago proper, giggled over by wealthy young black adults whose own upbringing in a gentrified district makes them skeptical of the horrors of what was once Cabrini-Green.

Troy is not the main character of this Candyman, though Nathan Stewart-Jarrett plays him very well; I worried for most of the movie that this lovely and flamboyant man or the man-candy on his arm would end up gutted. Horror doesn't usually allow the gays to be happy, and Candyman doesn't usually allow anyone else to be happy. The main character, rather, is Troy's sister's boyfriend: Anthony McCoy (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II from Aquaman, The Trial of the Chicago 7, and Watchmen), an artist whose mindfulness of the gentrification of his home neighborhood informs his art. Thankfully, his girlfriend Brianna (Teyonah Parris from If Beale Street Could Talk and WandaVision) is successful and mostly supportive of his work. As they hear the story from Brianna's brother, they discuss the central problems plaguing that particular historical context in the same way commentators and scholars have since Bernard Rose's original film came out. Brianna pointedly says, "White people built the ghetto and then erased it when they realized they built the ghetto."

Anthony wanders Cabrini-Green looking for inspiration for his next work. Once poked by his muse -- a bee, which of course is more than just a bee -- he creates violent works of the deaths of Black people in the neighborhood. Once put on display in a gallery run by a man named Clive (surely a nod to the short story source material by Clive Barker), things really get scary. Could the blatant capitalist commodification of Black lives and livelihoods have caused the bloody onslaught that takes two white people's lives in the gallery after hours? Or could it have been their flagrant disrespect of legends and a people group they know so little about? Either way, Candyman appears and blood is spilled.

Anthony learns a lot in a short amount of time, and it's in his scene with William (a deliciously sinister Colman Domingo), an older man who knows a little too much about the urban legend. But he's deeply endearing, and says lines that were surely penned directly by Jordan Peele, who serves here as writer and producer. Describing the perseverance of the myth, he notes that many men have died and been caught up in the Candyman story, as if a new horrific death of a Black man is needed to remind people about racism and police brutality. But, he says grimly, "one white woman dies and the story lives forever." William even provides Anthony his own origin story for Candyman, based on a run-in he had with a seedy figure as a child. My favorite line 

And herein dovetail the thematic elements, any of which are fascinating but, altogether, make the film an angry bonfire of an experience. This movie deepens and widens the monster's myth from the original film by carefully situating the intensifying violence on Black bodies by whiteness as its center point. Saying the name of Candyman -- literally the tool of his conjuring -- by the end of this movie becomes a sort of rallying cry for vengeance; it's also the rallying cry of current movements against abusive and deadly police tactics against Black people. Candyman becomes a sort of vindicator whose horrors might be a force for good if the endless cycle continues. In this way, Candyman radically makes use of the explicit fact that the real world is more horrifying than things dreamed up in supernatural fiction. There's a reason Lovecraft Country was recently popularized by HBO.

But that's not to discount the body horror here. The original was scary because of its gory content back when gore was becoming silly; this one fully embraces its skin-ripping, blood-gushing realism and more than once elicited groans and yelps from the auditorium in which I sat. Director Nia DaCosta (Little Woods and the upcoming MCU film The Marvels) harnesses a unique and deeply confident visual style that shook me to the core, one that knowingly and gleefully gooses the audience with morbid humor and jump scares before bulldozing us with existential dread. Her opening sequence, which features Sammy Davis Jr. singing "Candy Man" over reversed studio and distributor logos, leads into chilling shots of a foggy Chicago at twilight, shot upside-down and backwards from the street level. 

And then there's the story itself, which is so profoundly intelligent and unexpected that I gasped often out of sheer viewing pleasure. DaCosta's work is pitch-perfect, as is her direction of an excellent cast. The disgusting sound mixing and riveting cinematography clearly work toward DaCosta's intended vision. And the audacity of this screenplay in humanizing and communalizing the monster we've feared for three decades, while making him so much more horrifying through a wealth of real history that spans centuries, is nothing short of devastating. “Candyman isn’t a he,” William tells Anthony before warning him to stay away, “he’s the whole damn hive.” And if you had told me a sequel that we all thought was just a remake would be able to make the original make more sense rather than add a bunch of crazy new stuff, I'd have laughed at you. Five times. Maybe into a mirror.