All posts by Pam Jahn

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Cheap Thrills

Cheap Thrills
Cheap Thrills

Format: Cinema

Release date: 6 June 2014

Distributor: Koch Media

Director: E. L. Katz

Writers: David Chirchirillo, Trent Haaga

Cast: Pat Healy, Ethan Embry, Sara Paxton, David Koechner

USA 2013

92 mins

Director E. L. Katz’s Cheap Thrills is an incredibly timely and unexpectedly thrilling dark comedy which goes to places that you never expect. An astute and wicked journey, it’s shot with a keen eye for the absurd and the grotesque.

The script by David Chirchirillo and Trent Haaga centres on a family man named Craig (Pat Healy putting in an exceptional performance). On the day Craig finds an eviction notice on his front door, and is determined to ask for a raise at work in order to cover his family’s costs, he finds himself made redundant. Desolate and desperate, he goes to a bar to have a drink as he can’t bring himself to face his wife and their newborn child. By luck, he runs into his old friend Vince (Ethan Embry on top form). They are soon approached by a strange couple who buys them a round of drinks – Colin and Violet who are out celebrating Violet’s birthday. Over an increasingly strange night, the two will put Craig and Vince through a series of dares that will test the friends’ desperate need for money with progressively odder challenges.

Fitting snugly within the current social climate, Cheap Thrills acts as both social commentary and black comedy without ever becoming preachy. The tight set-up allows Katz to pile on the tension as the evening keeps taking ever stranger turns, and because the characters are so well defined, he’s able to elicit responses from the audience that otherwise would not be possible.

The opposing characters of Craig and Vince create a tension throughout the night that undoubtedly plays with the moral expectations of the audience: while the two start off as fairly wide archetypes, the script throws in hints throughout the film to suggest that the moral core of these characters might not be what the audience expects. Craig’s role as a failed author is reminiscent of James Mason’s hidden personality in Bigger Than Life; the blame may be attributed to the experimental drugs his character is given, there is the cruel suggestion that all the drugs have done is release some subconscious personality traits. Vince, on the other hand, might start the film of as typical alpha male but grows at the film goes along, becoming much more interesting.

Although Sara Paxton’s Violet is largely silent throughout the movie, letting the fast-talking, charmer with a glint in his eye Colin (played by David Koechner) dominate, she still manages to bring a depth to the character which builds throughout. Through gestures, looks and lines delivered with sly knowing, it’s obvious that Violet is as involved and in control as Colin – never an unwilling participant or forced audience member but both manipulator and thrill-seeker.

The dares within the film work well – rather than being gross and grotesque for the sake of shocking the audience, each one fits within the frame of the story in pushing our duo further into weird moral territory. There is a moment in the second act on which hangs a very delicate balance and it’s to the credit of the four leads that this climax works rather than playing out as cheap and sleazy.
Perhaps the greatest pleasure of the evening comes from watching the tight, taut script handled with such expertise by Katz. What could have been a straight thriller or just a mumble-core drama straddles a razor sharp line between satire, black comedy and thriller building up to a climax and a final image that will be impossible for the audience to get out of their heads.

An incredible achievement, Cheap Thrills is the sort of film that makes you want to applaud as soon as it ends – filled with great lines, terrific acting and the sort of cheap thrills you never thought you’d see , it is a must for anyone with a penchant for the darker side of cinema.

Evrim Ersoy

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Re-Animator

Re-Animator 1
Re-Animator

Format: DVD + Blu-ray steelbook

Release date: 2 June 2014

Distributor: Second Sight

Director: Stuart Gordon

Writers: Dennis Paoli, William Norris, Stuart Gordon

Based on thestory by: H.P. Lovecraft

Cast: Jeffrey Combs, Bruce Abbott, Barbara Crampton, David Gale

USA 1985

86 mins

Being an impressionable teenager with a love of horror movies during the 80s was a glorious thing; VHS had revolutionized the consumption of and access to films, leading to an explosion of genre filmmaking that pushed the envelope in terms of graphic gore, nudity and outré laughs, which adolescents such as myself lapped up on a daily basis. While 70s horror had been brutish, nasty and, largely, grimly realistic, 80s horror, fittingly for a decade synonymous with gaudy excess, revelled in slapstick terror, outlandish amounts of adrenaline-fuelled, blood-splattered violence. The likes of The Evil Dead, The Return of the Living Dead, Basket Case, Bad Taste and Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator all injected an energy, dark wit and invention into the genre that the more conventional slashers of the era sorely lacked.

In addition to the DVD limited edition and two-disc Blu-ray steelbook, Re-Animator is also available to download from 19 May and via VOD from 26 May 2014.

Gordon’s movie also breathed new life, excuse the pun, into the work of H. P. Lovecraft. The director’s loose, successful adaptation of Lovecraft’s serialized short story from 1922, ‘Herbert West–Reanimator’, led to a subsequent raft of generally forgettable movies based on the novels and short stories of the American author, who died in poverty before posthumously coming to be regarded as a seminal figure in the evolution of horror fiction. Since Re-Animator’s release almost 30 (!) years ago, Gordon himself went on to direct four more Lovecraft adaptations (with varying degrees of success): From Beyond, Castle Freak, Dagon and Dreams in the Witch-House, the latter as part of Showtime’s Masters of Horror series.

Having revisited Re-Animator for the first time in many years, I’m glad to say that it still pushes all the right buttons and remains a hugely entertaining, frequently outrageous riot, from its scene-setting pre-credit sequence to its final shot of the lurid, green reagent being injected into a lifeless corpse. The gorgeous opening credits (kaleidoscopic neon diagrams of the human body) and Richard Band’s upbeat soundtrack, variously described as ‘inspired by’ or ‘ripped off from’ Bernard Herrmann’s score for Psycho, aligned with the cast’s fully committed performances and Gordon’s evident who-gives-a-shit sense of fun, make Re-Animator an absolute blast to watch. In a performance that made him a cast-iron fan favourite, Jeffrey Coombs memorably stars as Herbert West, the gifted, arrogant and driven medical student who has discovered a potion that can restore life to the recently deceased. As West’s Frankenstein-like experiments spiral out of control in ever more outrageous ways, Coombs is ably supported by Bruce Abbott as Dan, West’s straight-laced student colleague at the medical school they both attend; Barbara Crampton as Dan’s girlfriend Megan, daughter of the school’s dean; and the late David Gale as West’s vain nemesis, Dr Carl Hill.

Listen to Alex Fitch’s interview with Re-animator producer Brian Yuzna.

Gordon’s movie is a joyously anarchic experience, as funny as it is grisly. Dead cats, shotgun-blast victims, entrails, limbs with lives of their own and headless corpses wreak bloody havoc after being subjected to West’s reagent, the side effects of which make the reanimated dangerously violent. To say any more regarding the plot would spoil the fun for the uninitiated, but if decapitations, eviscerations and a censor-baiting sprinkling of reverse necrophilia are your thing, then Re-Animator is a film you really need to have in your collection. As with many other 80s horror movies, Re-Animator is also testament to the fact that CGI effects are a poor substitute for practical ones. The tangible, messy and ingenious effects on display here are far more entertaining to watch than any computer generated image ever could be.

Neil Mitchell

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The Sacrament

The Sacrament
The Sacrament

Format: Cinema

Release date: 8 June 2014

Distributor: House Distribution UK

Director: Ti West

Writer: Ti West

Cast: Amy Seimetz, Joe Swanberg, AJ Bowen, Gene Jones

USA 2013

100 mins

Why would a Christian commune, dedicated to the creation of a Heaven on Earth in homage to the pacifist principles of Jesus Christ, require armed guards? As we discover during the creepy slow burn of Ti West‘s new thriller The Sacrament, the name of the game in Eden Parish is secrecy, which, as with all religious cults, is what keeps them powerful. Indoctrination, coercion, exploitation, deception and brainwashing are kind of helpful too. Patrick (Kentucker Audley), whose sister Caroline (Amy Seimetz), has fallen in with the cult, journeys to an undisclosed island on foreign soil to investigate her whereabouts and wellbeing, accompanied by Sam (AJ Bowen) and Jake (Joe Swanberg), two pals/colleagues from a major online multimedia news outlet.

The Sacrament is released on DVD in the UK on 7 July 2014.

Armed only with cameras, the three men are initially freaked out by the surly and burly machine-gun-toting guards who guide them into the compound. But as they explore the inner workings of the camp – populated with those like Caroline who lost their way in the world through various addictions and were guided back to what appears to be a clean and green life – it begins to seem like Eden Parish is not without merit.

Ahead of its UK release, The Sacrament opens in cinemas across Canada via VSC (Video Services Corp) and in the USA via Magnet Releasing on 6 June 2014.

The silver lining, however, is just that. Tranquility in the parish is only skin deep. As they slowly begin to notice an alarming number of aberrations, they fear for their own lives as well as those of the people who are not quite fitting in with the extremist views of the charismatic cult leader, Father (Gene Jones). In addition to being charming, persuasive and highly intelligent, Father, an oft-cool-shades-adorned fleshy orator with definite fascist undertones, is a downright creep – a skillfully malevolent manipulator and exploiter.

This is one chilling, scary-ass movie that grabs you very early in the proceedings and doesn’t let up, steadily mounting in its intensity until a climax that will have you begging for mercy. There are no cheap shocks and the violence is always muted, roiling just below the surface. I doubt Mr West is a student of the late, great Val Lewton (most young contemporary filmmakers have yet to make his acquaintance), but if he is, I would not be surprised, and if he isn’t, he should be, since he still has a few tricks to learn from a real master. (God knows, Scorsese, Friedkin and many other greats continue to acknowledge their debt to Lewton.) With this film and his previous effort, the fun and scary paranormal thriller The Innkeepers, West is proving to be a potential master of finding chills, thrills and evil in dark, yet unlikely corners, and, like Lewton, his genre indulgences are so much more than the simple, but effective, narrative coat hangers on which he drapes his explorations of humanity.

One element doesn’t quite hold up in the movie: there are inconsistencies with respect to the film within the film – the documentary that the trio is making on Eden Parish. Most of the time, the sheer force of West’s fine direction carries us along, but occasionally, we’re ripped out of the proceedings by some of the intrusive title cards that remind us we’re watching a finished product that’s already gone viral. It occasionally takes us a bit of time to get back into the otherwise riveting trajectory of the tale. It also suggests that someone will escape the evil, though in fairness, we’re never sure who and just how many are getting out.

This is a bit of a drag, because the movie has a kind of paranoia-infused 70s sensibility that suggests we might be cascading into a completely hope-bereft conclusion. That we’re treated to a tiny taste of hope so early and so consistently doesn’t quite fit the form. I even wondered if, at any point during the post-production process, West and his team tried to mute the film-within-the-film stuff, toss the title cards and use the actions of the characters and the more obvious doc-styled footage ‘naturally’ within the narrative, rather than the manner in which they are employed. Part of me thinks, based upon the coverage that appears on screen, that this might have been a worthy pursuit. Then again, I wasn’t sitting in the fucking edit suite, so what the fuck do I know? Maybe it was a consideration and didn’t work, but I do hate to think it wasn’t at least tried.

My only other quarrel with the picture is that it’s full of babes and there’s a fair bit of talk and suggestion of boink-o-rama activity in Eden Parish. No offence, but the issue of sex within the compound is brought up, and that we get nary a flash of said activity is a bit like introducing a loaded gun into a scene and not firing it. Let’s not forget the immortal nude harvest dance in the original 1970s The Wicker Man – totally creepy and hubba-hubba-sexy.

But, I digress.

Happily, the performances from all the leads in The Sacrament are top of the line, and it’s to West’s undying credit that the picture features the finest use of extras and background performers I’ve seen in any recent movie. If, however, there is anything resembling justice, Jesus and/or the God of Abraham on Planet Hollywood, Gene Jones as Father deserves as many supporting actor accolades as it is possible to bestow upon someone, including an Oscar nomination. This is no chew-the-scenery nonsense that so many more established stars will barf up when they play a villain: Jones is malevolence-incarnate because his performance is brilliantly muted. The camera loves the guy, and it’s impossible to take your eyes off him whenever he’s on screen. This is not just the hallmark of any charismatic cult leader; he brings a depth of intelligence and understanding to the character that makes us (almost) like him. He also infuses the performance with an element of tragedy. Father is no mere manipulator, but rather, a man who has come to believe so strongly in his beliefs that he’s managed to convince even himself that his might is right. It’s that very element of self-faith and self-love that Jones steadfastly nails to a cross that shows us why such individuals are alternately on top of the world just as clearly as they’re on a fast track to destruction.

You might remember Gene Jones from the Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men during the famous coin-toss scene, which, for me, was the performance in that movie that set the bar and proved the old adage: ‘There are no small parts…’ Here, though, West has given Gene Jones the role of a lifetime. I sincerely hope Jones’s work in The Sacrament is recognized, acknowledged and propulsive. The world needs more character actors of his caliber and I demand that he become as gloriously ubiquitous as Edward Arnold, Lionel Barrymore, Walter Huston, Charles Durning, Ned Beatty, Hume Cronyn, Paul Giamatti and every other great actor who more than propped up their fair share of pictures, but also created a myriad of living, breathing human beings who somehow, with their very appearance, gave their own work and that of everyone else a bit of that old silver screen immortality.

All in all, The Sacrament is a terrific little thriller and I’m looking forward to seeing it again. Maybe that will be enough to change my curmudgeonly nattering about the film-within-the-film elements and the lack of sex. Probably not, but it won’t matter. I like the picture – a lot!!!

Greg Klymkiw

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Maps to the Stars

Maps to the Stars
Maps to the Stars

Format: Cinema

Release date: 26 September 2014

Distributor: Entertainment One

Director: David Cronenberg

Writer: Bruce Wagner

Cast: Julianne Moore, Mia Wasikowska, Olivia Williams, Sarah Gadon, John Cusack, Robert Pattinson

Canada, USA 2014

112 mins

You can say what you want about Maps to the Stars, as long you don’t mention the word ‘satire’. At least not in the presence of director David Cronenberg or his screenwriter Bruce Wagner, who spent most of their time in Cannes denying the fact that the narrative could be seen as such. A pitch-black family drama of sorts, yes. Cronenberg’s very own Divine Comedy, maybe. A haunting, terrifying version of life in LA, if you like. But a ‘Tinseltown satire’, NO. ‘It is not a satire of Hollywood,’ Cronenberg stresses in more than one interview, ‘it’s reality.’ And Wagner adds: ‘I’ve given you the lay of the land as I see it, saw it, and lived it.’

If so, then the truth is that Wagner has seen a lot – by anyone’s standards. Julianne Moore plays Havana, a fading yet feisty ageing actress, who is desperate to make her big comeback but instead is increasingly haunted by the ghost of her mother, a celebrated child actress who became a classic Hollywood star. To her good fortune, Havana is inclined to think, she meets Agatha (Mia Wasikowska), whom she employs as her new PA. Branded with burn scars on her hands and arms, Agatha, however, has her very own agenda. The daughter of a smug self-help guru (John Cusack) and demanding mother (Olivia Williams), who managed her kids’ careers but otherwise cared little for their well-being, Agatha left home for rehab after causing a fire that put her and her little brother Benjie (Evan Bird) – a child star ruined by fame – in life-threatening danger. Now back in the hood, Agatha lives out her inner demons and romantic fantasies in a weird imaginary game with limousine chauffeur Jerome (Robert Pattinson), who, in turn, is seduced by Havana. Unsurprisingly, things get pretty messy from here on.

In his career, spanning almost 40 years since his 1975 debut featureShivers, Cronenberg has never before shot an entire film in LA and, quite aptly, finally arrives only to expose it to the bone before burning it all down to ashes. What’s more, Maps to the Stars exploits its blatantly Lynch-inspired plot of switching reality for fantasy, yourself for someone else, and losing all sense of truth to a point where delusion (and in Havana’s case, hysteria) thrives, terror rules, and nothing is sacred.

In both counts, the film sees Cronenberg at his weirdest, wittiest and most horrifying in years, crafting a highly charged, cynical nightmare about today’s fucked-up Hollywood society, with the suitable feel of a mystery ghost story. And yet, as fitting, seductive and gruesome as it is, Maps to the Stars somewhat feels at odds with the director’s insistence that the film is anything but a satirical apocalypse. But luckily, as in real life, the truth lies in the details and it is the ambiguity that makes the experience worthwhile.

This review is part of our Cannes 2014 coverage.

Pamela Jahn

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The Rover

The Rover
The Rover

Format: Cinema

Release date: 15 August 2014

Distributor: Entertainment One

Director: David Michôd

Writers: David Michôd, Joel Edgerton

Cast: Guy Pearce, Robert Pattinson

Australia 2014

102 mins

In 2010, when David Michôd’s Animal Kingdom hit big screens around the world to overwhelming critical acclaim, it almost felt like a revelation for contemporary Australian cinema. Smart, gritty, intensely unsettling and radiating a seething energy derived from an excellent ensemble of low-key performances, Animal Kingdom proved once more that with a fresh, imaginative approach there is no need for a spectacular budget.

The Rover is available in the UK on VOD from 15 December 2014 and on DVD/Blu-ray from 5 January 2015.

Michôd’s eagerly awaited follow-up The Rover might lack some of the density and acuity of his coolly detached debut, but the film still manages to maintain a fierce tension despite the flaws in its fractured plot and characterisation. Starring a cold-eyed Guy Pearce and a deeply committed Robert Pattinson (trying hard but unavailingly to shake off his fetching Twilight persona) The Rover is a post-apocalyptic tale set amid the raw violence of a society in decline where the demise of all codes of honour is wryly acknowledged.

Ten years after an unspecified ‘collapse’, the blasted world in which angry loner Eric (Pearce) survives is one where greed reigns supreme, bullets are cheap and life is cheaper. Somewhere in that God-forsaken outback Eric has his car stolen by three passing outlaws. As he goes after them to reclaim his very last possession, he bumps into simple-minded desperado Rey (Pattinson), the wounded little brother of one of the carjackers, who has been left behind after an unexplained shootout, but still has enough life in him to help Eric.

It may have been better to not explain the reason why Eric stops at nothing to get his car back, rather than revealing it abruptly at the end, but more disappointing is the gradually fading force of Michôd’s storytelling after a gripping first half. While he succeeds in echoing the spirit of some of the darker, dustier takes on the genre by making excellent use of the harsh landscape, he fails to craft a seamless narrative of similar verve and refinement as Animal Kingdom. But still, what ultimately drives The Rover is a combination of danger and uncertainty, and Pearce’s captivating performance as he is perpetually faced with the realisation that things can always get worse.

Pamela Jahn

This review is part of our Cannes 2014 coverage.

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The Streetwalker

The Margin
The Streetwalker

Director: Walerian Borowczyk

Writer: Walerian Borowczyk

Based on the novel by: André Pieyre de Mandiargues

Cast: Sylvia Kristel, Joe Dallesandro

Original title: La marge

Alternative title: The Margin

France 1976

88 mins

I think it was Lacan who asked the question: if we’re always thinking about sex when we’re doing other things – eating bananas, driving fast cars, learning French – what are we thinking about when we’re actually having sex? When Sylvia Kristel’s streetwalker Diana has sex in Walerian Borowczyk’s 1976 film The Streetwalker (La marge), it’s so obvious as to almost be ludicrous. She stares at the money that she has clutched in her hand with such intensity as to leave no doubt, even as her John, Sigimond (the iconic Joe Dallesandro) thrusts intently away. Sex is a transaction, a way of earning money. Sigimond is a rich vineyard owner with a young family visiting Paris for business. He is a romantic. He is not lonely and Borowczyk shows his home life to be sexually satisfying, idyllic even. He’s prone to mutter mid-coital silliness such as ‘You are the gift and the giver’. And so his dalliance and experimentation while away on his ‘business trip’ has nothing to do with filling a vacuum. He just wants to have some sex. When he is having sex – to answer Lacan’s question and in opposition to Diana – he is thinking about the sex he is having. The film will trace his increasing distraction and the tragic price to be paid for such guileless romance, even as Diana becomes more aware of sex as something other than a way of earning money, which in itself proves a painful reawakening.

Released two years after Kristel achieved notoriety and worldwide fame as Emmanuelle, the film stands as a testament to her genuine ability as an actress, and it is cited by the actress as her favourite role. Her fragility – the gnawing anxiety that she is already being superseded by younger models of her former self – and her growing yearning for something other than monetary gain is played out in a brilliant and nuanced performance. With the shifting of porn into the mainstream via the internet and the proliferation of sexposition in TV drama, the film doesn’t even seem particularly pornographic today, but on release it was received as another attempt to gain art-house respectability for sex films. Kristel’s fame possibly damaged the film as it was remarketed in some regions as Emmanuelle ’77. However, despite the movie star beauty of the prostitutes, Borowczyk never celebrates sex unambiguously, juxtaposing it with the banal. A beautifully shot strip show takes place as a crate of booze is delivered to the bar by a working stiff – sign here, keep a copy – and Diana will retire to the same backroom for a quick delivery of her own. The prostitutes are bitchy and Diana herself is dishonest and angry. Her pimp is a lazy dressing-gown-clad psychopath who does target practice with his pistol in his hotel room. But it is not just the sex that has to contend with the banal, but tragedy too when Sigimond reads a terrible letter from home while gazing over the most unromantic Parisian view of a huge building site.

Camera Obscura: The Walerian Borowczyk Collection is released by Arrow Academy on 8 September 2014. This unique limited edition box set (Dual Format DVD + Blu-ray) includes the short films, The Theatre of Mr and Mrs Kabal, Goto, l’île d’amour, Blanche, The Beast and Immoral Tales – it does not contain The Streetwalker.

With a score from some giants of 1970s music, a stunning extended use of Pink Floyd’s ‘Shine on You Crazy Diamond’ and some fantastic cinematography by long-time collaborator Bernard Daillencourt, the film is a beautiful melancholic meditation on sex in a dirty, dirty world.

John Bleasdale

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Sisters

Sisters
Sisters

Format: Dual Format (DVD + Blu-ray)

Release date: 28 April 2014

Distributor: Arrow Video

Director: Brian De Palma

Writers: Brian De Palma, Louisa Rose

Cast: Margot Kidder, Jennifer Salt, Charles Durning

USA 1973

93 mins

My colleagues, they can make believe that Dominique is truly disturbed; I think that they will find that Danielle, who is so sweet, so responsive, so normal as opposed to her sister, can only be so because of her sister.

Present day, Staten Island, and actress Danielle Breton (Margot Kidder) has been separated from her twin, Dominique Blanchion, for some years. She meets Phillip Woode (Lisle Wilson) a kind man who seems like he’d take care of Danielle; but when her spooky ex-husband shows up on their date, it becomes clear that she has a ‘past’. When sinister events unfold, columnist Grace Collier (Jennifer Salt) sees this as her big opportunity to write the story that will finally help her to bust through the glass ceiling, and starts her own investigation into Danielle’s life.

Central to De Palma’s films is the idea that the normal and the psychotic are symbiotic: they feed from each other, and one cannot exist without the other. It makes sense therefore that he would have been drawn to making a psychological thriller based on conjoined twins; Sisters (1973) is an early incarnation of the syrupy twisted with grotesque violence. What starts as a quasi-realist thriller takes a turn simply with the appearance of a huge birthday cake to celebrate the twins’ birthday; its pink frosting flowers, the twinkling candlelight, Bernard Herrmann’s score jangling in the background, and the enormous carving knife that has been placed next to it all bode ill, yet somehow they seem to be entirely appropriate. In Carrie (1976), three years later, De Palma would combine the saccharine normality of American high school pomp with pig’s blood and telekinetic delirium, and how blissful is that mix.

Sisters is like a fairy tale that evolves into a slasher thriller, with women doing some of the thinking – at last. De Palma is good at writing material where female characters are allowed to talk to each other, and about women. Grace Collier has scenes where she speaks about her frustrations with not being taken seriously; this happens at work, and when she confronts the police as a witness to a brutal crime, their levity is clearly based on her gender. She even gets to talk directly to Danielle Breton about something other than men or children, although Danielle’s capacity for murder is not much of an upgrade. Later, in a sense, Grace metaphorically changes places with Dominique, the disturbed twin. Grace is a character with guts and intelligence, but it’s as if these qualities can be easily made equivocal with the monstrous. Only heavy-handed hypnosis can manipulate her strong mind, and she is partly silenced for her agency and will. De Palma creates aberrant women, where psychosis merges with normality, even if the narratives shut them down at the end of the films. But consider Carrie’s hand thrusting out of the soil of her newly dug grave – this lasting image serves as a reminder that the monsters are not going to go away.

It’s good to see this cult classic re-released, and to remember it as one of the films that paved the way for other great films about twins, including Kim Jee-woon’s Tale of Two Sisters (2003).

Nicola Woodham

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Willow Creek

Willow Creek
Willow Creek

Format: Cinema

Release date: 2 May 2014

Distributor: Kaleidoscope Entertainment

Directors: Bobcat Goldthwait

Writer: Bobcat Goldthwait

Cast: Alexie Gilmore, Bryce Johnson

USA 2013

78 mins

In the wilderness, in the dark, it’s sound that plays tricks upon your eyes – not what you can’t see, but what your imagination conjures with every rustle, crack, crunch, moan and shriek. When something outdoors whacks the side of your tent, reality sinks in, the palpability of fear turns raw, numbing and virtually life-draining.

You’re fucked! Right royally fucked!

There were, of course, the happier times – when you and the woman you loved embarked on the fun-fuelled journey of retracing the steps of Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin who, in the fall of 1967 shot a little less than 1000 frames of motion picture footage of an entity they encountered striding through the isolated Bluff Creek in North-Western California.

Your gal was humouring you, of course. She was indulging you. She was not, however, mocking you – she was genuinely enjoying this time of togetherness in the wilderness as you lovebirds took turns with the camera and sound equipment to detail the whole experience. You both sauntered into every cheesy tourist trap in the area, chatted amiably with numerous believers and non-believers alike and, of course, you both dined on scrumptious Bigfoot burgers at a local greasy spoon.

Yup, Bigfoot – the legendary being sometimes known as Sasquatch or Yeti – a tall, broad, hairy, ape-like figure who captured the hearts, minds and imaginations of indigenous populations and beyond – especially when the Patterson-Gimlin footage took the world by storm. And now, here you both are in Willow Creek, California, following the footsteps of those long-dead amateur filmmakers.

All of us have been watching, with considerable pleasure, your romantic antics throughout the day. When night falls, we’ve joined you in your tent and soon, the happy times fade away and we’re all wishing we had some receptacle to avoid soiling our panties. You’re probably wishing the same thing, because in no time at all, you’re going to have the crap scared out of you.

Willow Creek is released on DVD in the UK on 26 May 2014 by Kaleidoscope Home Entertainment.

We have, of course, entered the world of Bobcat Goldthwait’s Willow Creek. Goldthwait is one of the funniest men alive – a standup comedian of the highest order and a terrific comic actor, oft-recognized for his appearances in numerous movies (including the Police Academy series). He’s voiced a myriad of cartoon characters and directed Jimmy Kimmel’s TV show and subsequent concert flick.

In addition to these achievements, Goldthwait has solidified himself as one of the most original, exciting and provocative contemporary American film directors working today. His darkly humoured, satirical and (some might contend) completely over-the-top films are infused with a unique voice that’s all his own. They’ve made me laugh longer and harder than almost anything I’ve seen during the past two decades or so.

Even more astounding is that his films – his first depicting the life of an alcoholic birthday party clown, one involving dog fellatio, another about an accidental teen strangulation during masturbation and yet another which delivered a violent revenge fantasy for Liberals – ALL have a deep current of humanity running through them. His movies are as deeply observational and genuinely moving as they are nastily funny and often jaw-droppingly shocking.

God Bless America, for example, is clearly the most perverse vigilante movie ever made. Goldthwait created a wonderful character in Frank, an average American white-collar worker who suffers noisy neighbours, endless hours of TV he hates but watches anyway, loses his job for sexually harassing a dumpy co-worker who’s been coming on to him, is estranged from a wife who left him for a hunky, thick-witted cop, only gets to see his daughter by promising to buy her things he can’t afford and has recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. When this beleaguered schlub begins a spree of mass murder, doing what all Liberals must do when civilization is on the brink of collapse, we’re with him all the way. When he teams up with a like-minded 12-year-old girl, the two of them a veritable Bonnie and Clyde, blasting away at America’s most vile entities, Goldthwait’s movie goes ballistic and so do we, cheering on these very cool birds of a feather who kill people – not because they’re necessarily criminals, but because they are horrible human beings contributing to society’s downfall.

I actually thought Goldthwait was going to have a hard time following that one, but I was wrong, of course. Willow Creek is a corker! It forces you to emit cascades of urine from laughing so hard, then wrenches sausage chubs of steaming excrement out of your bowels as it scares you out of your wits.

It’s a ‘found footage’ film, but I hesitate to use the almost-dirty-word to describe it, because Goldthwait, unlike far too many boneheads, hardly resorts to the sloppy tropes of the now tiresome genre. He’s remained extremely true and consistent to the conceit and in so doing, uses it as an effective storytelling tool to generate an honest-to-goodness modern masterwork of horror.

His attractive leads are nothing less than engaging. Lead actor Bryce Johnson has a naturally comic and commanding presence. As a bonus, he reveals a scrumptious posterior that the ladies will admire (and, of course, gentlemen of the proper persuasion). Alexie Gilmore is so attractive, sharp, smart and funny that it would be a shame if stardom wasn’t in the cards for her.

Goldthwait’s clever mixture of real locals and actors is perfection and the movie barrels along with a perfect pace to allow you to get to know and love the protagonists, laugh with them, laugh with the locals (not at them) and finally to plunge you into the film’s shuddering, shocking and horrific final third. The movie both creeps you out and forces you to jump out of your seat more than once.

Goldthwait is the real thing. If you haven’t seen his movies up to this point, you must. As for Willow Creek, I’d urge everyone to see the film on a big screen with a real audience if they can. When things get super-terrifying, you can feel that wonderful electric buzz that can only happen when you’re at the movies. Sure, it will work fine at home in a dark room with your best girlie snuggled at your side on the comfy couch, but – WOW! – this is a genuine BIG SCREEN EVENT. Try to see it that way, first! The movie is so good that it holds up nicely on subsequent viewings, allowing you to appreciate the full nuance of Goldthwait’s direction, his expert use of sound, the delectable humour (black and otherwise shaded) and then, there’s the bravura with which Goldthwait gives you the willies before he delivers several moments of cinematic cold cocking roundhouse blows.

This review was first published on Klymkiw Film Corner.

Greg Klymkiw

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Ace in the Hole


Ace in the Hole 1
Ace in the Hole

Format: Dual Format (DVD + Blu-ray)

Release date: 28 April 2014

Distributor: Eureka Entertainment

Director: Billy Wilder

Writers: Billy Wilder, Lesser Samuels, Walter Newman

Cast: Kirk Douglas, Jan Sterling, Robert Arthur

USA 1951

111 mins

Kirk Douglas is Chuck Tatum, a born ‘newspaperman’, who used to have desks in New York and Washington, but is now reduced to filing copy for the Albuquerque Sun Bulletin, biding his time, waiting for the story that will get him back in the big leagues. His chance arrives in the form of luckless shmoe Leo Minosa (Richard Benedict), trapped by a cave-in while trying to excavate Indian artefacts to sell at his struggling tourist trap cafe in Esquedero (nowhere, New Mexico). Tatum inveigles himself into the centre of the action by force of will and personality, and creates a media sensation with this victim of the ‘curse of the mountain of seven vultures’. The crowds begin to swarm to Esquedero, the rest of the media descend, (there is a literal ‘media circus’ when the carnival rides move in) and Tatum has to do all he can to keep his story exclusive and ongoing, and should that include getting a corrupt sheriff (Ray Teal) re-elected, and interfering with the rescue plans to draw out the ‘human interest’ drama… Well, so be it.

Co-writer/director/producer Billy Wilder’s scabrous broadside against the mentality of the yellow press should really have dated horribly in the age of blogging, twitter and tumbling print sales. Made in 1951, it’s set in a world of manual typewriters and smoky workplaces, where newspapers and radios rule and TV is the new kid on the block. That it still enthrals is largely down to the fact that it’s as lean and mean as a rattlesnake, a bitter parable of hubris and horror with no room for romance or sentiment. It knows what it wants to say and moves relentlessly towards that conclusion. Appropriately enough it has the virtues of a good tabloid hack, quickly establishing the who/what/where of the characters with minimal fuss and an eye for the telling detail. So we quickly get the measure of Lorraine (Jan Sterling), Leo’s wife, sharp of tongue and blonde of bottle, and she quickly gets the measure of Tatum: ‘I’ve met a lot of hard-boiled eggs in my time but you…you’re 20 minutes’. Lorraine is allowed a complexity denied your regulation dumb blonde or femme fatale: she’s disloyal, and mercenary, but it’s hard not to feel something for a smart woman trapped in this ‘sun-baked Siberia’. Wilder was once a journalist himself, and this is a writer’s film, carried by crackling dialogue and in thrall to the logic of story rather than box office. The media landscape may have changed but the tale still rings true.

It’s a film of well-used (mainly dusty) locations and well-cast (mainly sweaty) faces, filled with character actors rather than stars. The exception, of course, being Kirk Douglas, who’s another large part of why the film still plays. Chuck Tatum is an extraordinary creation; from the moment he appears on screen reading the Sun Bulletin in a convertible being towed by a truck, he exudes a dynamic energy, a kind of poisonous charisma that sucks the rest of the cast down with him. He looks fantastic in black shirt, braces and Steve Ditko trousers, striking matches from typewriter carriages or one-handed against a thumbnail, monologuing endlessly, pacing rooms that barely contain him. We feel his frustration at his reduced status and watch his eyes light up at the scent of the tragedy that will set him free. Tatum does awful things, but he’s never a monster, and Douglas gives us moments of insecurity underneath the bluster. This is the bilious flipside to the standard American myth, where a man with the right ‘moxie’ and determination can achieve his dreams. The film ends in nightmare, but the dynamic remains the same.

Mark Stafford

The Eureka release comes with a booklet, original trailer, an informative featurette on the film with Wilder biographer Neil Sinyard, and a great little hour-long 1982 documentary Portrait of a 60&#37 Perfect Man made by Michel Ciment and Annie Tresgott, with Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon, and a mischievous Wilder, on the cusp of nothing much, chatting about his life and work.

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