The sinister potential of New Age practices gets explored yet again in Karl Mueller’s Rebirth, a psychological thriller continuing the somewhat recent trend of films about cults like Faults, The Invitation, and Martha Marcy May Marlene. This time, rather than taking inspiration from the likes of the Manson family or Jonestown, Rebirth bases its eponymous enlightenment group off of the Church of Scientology, and anyone vaguely familiar with L. Ron Hubbard’s creepy “religion” will pick up on the influence within minutes. And while Mueller provides enough intrigue to keep viewers guessing, he has a hard time coming up with a proper conclusion for his small-scale mind games.

Kyle (Fran Kranz) is a typical upper-middle-class office drone, living in a big suburban home with his wife and daughter and spending his days working at a bank in the city. An opening montage establishes the happy monotony of Kyle’s life, which soon gets interrupted when his old college friend Zack (Adam Goldberg) shows up at his work. Zack asks Kyle to cancel all his weekend plans and participate with him in something called Rebirth, which he only describes as “an experience.” Kyle bristles at the boldness of his old friend’s proposal, but he decides to go for it after succumbing to his nostalgic feelings.

Things get weird in a short amount of time, as the hotel Kyle checks himself into for the weekend getaway turns out to be a ruse. A series of clues leads him to a bus filled with dozens of other men, all of whom have to hand over their cell phones and wear blindfolds for the entire ride while they’re taken to Rebirth’s real location. Upon arriving, Kyle and the other bus passengers get taken to a room where a man (Steve Agee) explains Rebirth’s anti-establishment philosophies, making it sound like some sort of college bro’s attempt at copying Chuck Palahniuk. From there, several strange events draw Kyle away from the main group and off into a sort of hellish funhouse, exploring a derelict building where each room offers a different, stranger facet of what Rebirth has to offer.

This section of the film turns out to be its strongest, even though its structure and influences are plain as day. Kyle bounces from room to room, and every door he opens functions as an excuse for Mueller to come up with a bizarre situation to throw his protagonist into. An early highlight involves Kyle stumbling into some kind of support group whose leader (Andrew J. West) torments people both physically and psychologically. It’s a gripping sequence, but it’s a borderline remake of the classroom scenes in Whiplash. Plenty of other influences pop up throughout Rebirth, including David Fincher’s The Game and Charlie Brooker’s TV series Black Mirror, but these comparisons aren’t complimentary; it just shows that Mueller is a competent copycat.

On the other hand, Mueller’s focus is squarely on creating an entertaining game of figuring out what’s real or part of Rebirth, and Kranz and the committed ensemble (including Harry Hamlin and Pat Healy, who take full advantage of their small roles) make the film’s transparent qualities easier to forgive. It’s in the final act, when the group starts exerting its influence on Kyle’s personal life, that the screenplay starts to break down. By breaking away from Rebirth’s controlled environment and into the real world, the plausibility of the whole scenario gets extremely thin, but not as thin as whatever message Mueller tries to tack on in the closing minutes. After an abrupt ending, the film switches over to one of Rebirth’s promotional videos while the credits roll. The video, a deliberate attempt to mimic Scientology’s promos (including the infamous Tom Cruise video), makes the whole film feel like the set-up for a corny punchline. A brief section of the video, where Rebirth promotes its branded product line, suggests a bit of a sly commentary on New Age ideas getting swallowed up by capitalist interests, but it’s drowned out by the parodic, wink-nudge nature of the clip.

Pandemic is exactly what it says it is. There is no deceptive setup, no mind-altering plot twist, and no moment where the story’s world suddenly expands to encompass something much more grand and complex. Director John Suits’ infection thriller has none of the disease politics of Contagion or the thematic underpinnings of Blindness. It skews much closer to the raw thrills of something like [REC], sticking to a simple, survival plot, relying on its POV gimmick (the film is shot almost entirely through cameras mounted on the characters’ hazmat suits) and gore money shots for entertainment value. This is an unpretentious B-movie executed with enough competence to keep it out of the Syfy Channel’s late night rotation, but that doesn’t mean it’s particularly compelling.

Lauren (Rachel Nichols) is newly stationed at a compound that serves as a quarantine zone for survivors of an outbreak that has swept across the planet in the near future. The origins of the disease are kept relatively vague, but we’re given plenty of hints at the condition of the outside world through a dose of exposition that opens the film. Our protagonist gets assigned as a doctor to a four-person squad. Their mission is to maneuver a bus across a ravaged Los Angeles to a school, where they must gather any survivors hiding there and pick up whatever supplies they might find. As you might expect, the trip doesn’t exactly go as planned, and the team finds itself stranded amongst diseased monsters.

Standing in the way of the main characters’ survival are the infected hordes. They’re never referred to as “zombies” but they might as well be, if not for their intelligence. There are multiple levels of the virus’ degradation, and depending on where someone falls on that scale, they may have the ability to set traps and use tools, or they may possess superhuman strength and exist in an animalistic, heightened state of awareness. Either way, they’re out to kill anything that moves.

The environment of Pandemic is a post-apocalyptic cityscape that’s all too familiar. Short drive-by montages show signs of a severe societal upheaval; bodies hang from a towering crane, disenfranchised citizens shuffle along the sidewalks, and the walls are covered with ominous messages written in graffiti. The film’s world is grimy and squalid, but the up-close and personal nature of the POV camerawork does little to sell viewers on its authenticity. Clearly showing the limits of its low budget, the key locations are confined to empty interiors and small portions of isolated side streets. The idea of a larger city, teeming with dangers, existing beyond the boundaries of these secluded spaces is almost never grasped with any tangibility, and this is a major blow to the sense of immersion that Pandemic tries to evoke.

When it comes to the compact unit of protagonists, the details aren’t any more inspired. The armed bodyguard of the group (Mekhi Phifer) is gruff and authoritative, full of big talk and more than capable of backing it up with action. He criticizes Lauren for her dangerous indecisiveness and knocks heads with the team’s driver (Alfie Allen), a scrappy ex-con who manufactures a snarky line or hotheaded retort for every occasion. Completing the group of four is a navigator named Denise (Missi Pyle), a warmer presence in comparison to the other two who befriends Lauren. Phony banter between team members is consistent throughout, and the chemistry shared by the actors is nothing more than superficial.

Screenwriter Dustin T. Benson tries to fill out these one-dimensional characters with a series of emotionally contrived backstories, giving almost everyone a missing or dead loved one. The undercurrents of self-doubt and atonement give some weight to the characters’ predicaments, but these redemptive arcs are so tired it’s hard to care about how they play out. As with the setting, these conflicts are far from new, and neither the middling direction nor the serviceable performances are enough to elevate the familiarity to something more nuanced.

However, Pandemic is a film with schlocky roots and instincts, taking more pleasure in its cheesy-looking creatures and bloody encounters than in its tacked on human drama. But a mix of dark settings and shaky POV cinematography makes it difficult to see every moment of action. Only one sequence—which transforms a locker room into a gory obstacle course—stands out as especially riveting. But it’s only one scene in a long string of dull skirmishes and numbingly repetitive jump scares.

When looking for outbreak thrillers, there are a lot of films worse than Pandemic, but this is hardly prime material. The film offers nothing new besides its POV visuals perspective, and even that aspect isn’t terribly memorable. Poor effects and mediocre sound design round out what amounts to a bland, derivative experience.

First-time feature director Dan Trachtenberg milks a simple, succulent premise for everything it’s worth in 10 Cloverfield Lane, a quasi-sequel to 2008’s found-footage urban thriller Cloverfield. Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays our resourceful, sharp-minded hero, who, after a wicked car crash, wakes up trapped in a subterranean survival bunker with a lumbering, creepy captor (John Goodman) who claims the outside world has been reduced to a wartorn, uninhabitable wasteland. It’s a powder keg of a movie with an old-school approach to storytelling that’s interested not in philosophy or meaning, but simply in the events unfolding right in front of our eyes. It’s a story that asks what (the fuck) is happening rather than why things are happening, and that makes it less complicated and more streamlined than the typical, weighty, modern-day thriller.

The first two acts are equal parts mystery and suspense, with the finale bursting at the seams with surprises and edge-of-your-seat thrills and chills. The script, by Whiplash director Damien Chazelle and newcomers Matthew Stuecken and Josh Campbell, is a solid chamber mystery that doesn’t push any boundaries but is the perfect support system for Trachtenberg and the actors to make the movie special with what they each bring to the table. High tension runs throughout the movie’s runtime (not an easy feat), and that’s a product of the performances, visual style, and pulse-pounding orchestral score by Bear McCreary. It’s a harmonious popcorn-movie affair, with nary a weak link in sight.

In a tearful hurry, aspiring fashion designer Michelle packs some light bags and peels off in her car, fleeing from a failing relationship. Night falls, and, distracted by her beau lighting up her cell phone, she flies off the road. The shock of the crash is unnervingly concussive, images of a tumbling Winstead and roaring sounds of broken glass (mixed almost painfully loud) cut violently into the film’s opening credits. Immediately, we get a taste for Trachtenberg’s punchy, mischievous style.

Michelle (Winstead) wakes up in a windowless room that would feel more like a prison cell were it not for the life-supporting amenities wrapped around her right leg (a knee brace) and stuck in her left arm (a flowing IV). Suddenly, the heavy metal door clanks open and in walks Howard (Goodman, having so much fun being a total creep), a nutty survivalist who claims there’s been a disastrous attack above ground that’s wiped everyone and everything Michelle knows into oblivion. What’s worse, he informs her that the air outside has been rendered unbreathable. Bottom line: for the foreseeable future, Howard’s bunker is her world.

Howard says he found Michelle in the wreckage of her accident and took her to his shelter, saving her from most certain doom. But there’s no way this ex-Navy weirdo is telling the whole truth, right? Every sentence that comes out of his mouth is either off-putting or suspicious, and he even suggests that Martians could very well be behind the attacks. He might as well have “UNRELIABLE” tattooed across his massive belly (right underneath another tattoo that reads “THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE!”).

Our instincts tell us that this guy is a full-on serial killer/rapist who’s lying about everything, but everything gets thrown off balance when Michelle discovers a third bunkmate, Emmitt (John Gallagher Jr.), who vouches for everything Howard says despite the grisly lout beating the shit out of him for knocking over a shelf full of food. The plot is almost solely driven by the questions that naturally arise from Howard’s deceitful air (What are his true motivations? Has the world really gone to hell like he says?), and in this respect Goodman works wonders with his performance. He’s terrifying alright, but there’s a sadness underneath the surface that gives him dimension and keeps us on our toes. Michelle’s mind always seems to be on the go, her eyes taking in the details of her environment, searching for a potential tool she can use to get her out of whatever pickle she’s in. It’s a thoughtful performance by Winstead, who makes sure Michelle is the farthest thing from a damsel in distress. The actors make their characters’ mental and emotional underpinnings as interesting as any explosion of violence or plot twist, resulting in a more humanistic, tender film than one might expect.

It’s difficult to convey just how intense 10 Cloverfield Lane gets without venturing into spoiler territory. (What’s interesting to note, however, is that Trachtenberg’s career really began to build traction after he released a short film based on the video game Portal; that game’s narrative has more than a few things in common with 10 Cloverfield Lane‘s, which I found intriguing.) The revelations and twists that pile on in the latter half are delightful, not so much because they work on the page, but rather because they arrive so perfectly, bathed in suspense and terror and wackiness and all the things you’d find in the best episodes of The Twilight Zone. If there’s a downside to the lingering questions being answered it’s that the answers we get pale in comparison to the air of mystery they smash apart.

Now, the elephant in the room: How, exactly, is 10 Cloverfield Lane tied to Cloverfield? The surprise won’t be revealed here (the project was overseen by the Mystery Man himself, JJ Abrams, after all), but what I will say is that most of the pleasures found in Trachtenberg’s film have nothing to do with the found-footage original, with which it has almost nothing in common. In fact, this movie is significantly better than its predecessor, so it’s probably best to leave any expectations the Cloverfield brand may conjure in your mind at the theater door.

There are more worries that come with parenting than there’s space here to list, but one worth mentioning involves babysitters. A child is precious, so the care for that child must be handed to someone whose trust is irrefutable. A trustworthy sitter is a valuable commodity and can mean a stress-free (and well-deserved) night out for parents. A new sitter, though, is a different story. A new sitter invites questions, worries, and doubts until they can prove their worth. These are the sorts of doubts are at the center of Emelie, an effective thriller that taps into the fears of parents and children about strange sitters.

Dan and Joyce Thompson (Chris Beetem and Susan Pourfar) plan a night out without their three kids to celebrate their wedding anniversary. When their usual sitter can’t make it, they hire her friend, Anna. At first, Anna is everything the kids could want in a sitter because she lets them do whatever they please. But as the night progresses, Anna’s behavior grows darker. 11-year-old Jacob (Joshua Rush) learns this mysterious new sitter’s name isn’t actually Anna, but rather Emelie (Sarah Bolger). Once Emelie’s identity is compromised, her behavior grows even darker.

After a harrowing opening (the film’s one true, and earned, jump scare moment) that allows Emelie to assume the role of Anna, first-time feature writer/director Michael Thelin settles into an unsurprising, if not mostly predictable, first-act groove. He presents the serenity of suburbia to establish the juxtaposed backdrop of the impending terror. He portrays the chaos found in a house where parents scramble to get ready so they don’t miss their reservation while trying to wrangle their three young ones. While driving to the restaurant, natural parental worrying settles in but ultimately passes. As for that sitter, she curries favor with kids immediately by allowing them total freedom. This is where it gets interesting.

For the two younger kids it’s all about junk food and playtime, but for Jacob, Emelie is both attractive and a temporary mother-figure he wants to please. Emelie senses both of these things and exploits the former when, in a stunning scene, she asks Jacob to fetch her a tampon…while she’s on the toilet and he’s in the bathroom with her. This is the first in a collection of lapel-grabbing scenes that move the story away from that familiar groove while avoiding expected psycho-sitter moments.

Thelin draws Emelie as wickedly subversive and passive-aggressive in her cruelty to the children. Rather than overtly frighten them or physically abuse them, Emelie instead exposes them to things that are varying degrees of traumatic, including putting one child’s pet hamster into the tank of another child’s pet snake. Emelie is rich with other similar moments, which aren’t so much scary as they are discomforting.

Hampering the film, however, is the inclusion of a mysterious man spying on the parents while Emelie is watching the children, which stops the film in its tracks every time Thelin focuses on this subplot. Seeing the parents enjoying themselves while their children are going through this traumatic night is unnecessary; the addition of the spy tries to force some greater sense of doom on the evening and it never quite works.

The other big detriment to Emelie is its lack of momentum. While it fits the traditional three-act structure, Emelie never turns up the intensity. The film is essentially a collection of moments that never build up to something greater, but it’s a solid B-movie that Thelin doesn’t try to oversell. He makes some interesting creative choices that mostly work, like his creation of the title character and (especially) the decision to avoid turning the story into a straight cat-and-mouser. This is a taut thriller that finds its greatest effectiveness in its discomforting moments.

Perhaps for the entirety of his career, Aaron Paul will be tied to the iconic role of Breaking Bad‘s burnout-turned-meth-hero Jesse Pinkman. It’s something he’s thankful for: “I’m very blessed to have played an iconic character,” he says graciously. Since that landmark TV show, Paul’s stayed away from drug-addict roles for obvious reasons. But when he was presented with the script for John Hillcoat‘s ensemble crime-thriller Triple 9, he jumped at the chance to work with the director, despite the fact that he’d once again have to pick up a pipe on-screen.

The decision paid off: Paul is an absolute standout in a movie full of Hollywood heavy-hitters including Kate Winslet, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Casey Affleck, Woody Harrelson, Anthony Mackie, Gal Gadot, Norman Reedus, Clifton Collins Jr., and more. Playing a member of a gang crooked cops pulling off an elaborate, dangerous heist, the still-evolving actor makes every onscreen minute count, creating a character with dimension and depth in what’s essentially a series of quick glimpses. Looks like he’s continuing to hone the tools he sharpened opposite Bryan Cranston on that seminal show forever doomed him to be referred to as “bitch” by his adoring fans. “I gotta take it in stride, you know?”

In a roundtable interview, I spoke to Paul about Triple 9, which is out in theaters nationwide today.

You’re sort of unrecognizable in this movie. The hair, the strung-out-ness. How did you go to that place? It feels like he’s so out of his depth at this point in his life.
He’s going through a lot. It was kind of easy; it was just on the page. I think these characters were so well developed before I even attached myself. Before we even started, John gave us all a giant folder of information, a dropbox that just kept filling up every day with images that are impossible to erase from your mind. Decapitated heads…he wanted us to draw from our own knowledge.

He had me go on some ridealongs with the LAPD and I saw some pretty crazy stuff. We drove around East L.A. in a neighborhood I’ve never been to in my life. You just see how cops are viewed. We pulled over this guy whose girlfriend had just been shot. She was in the front seat, his mom was in the back seat. This was now his third strike because he had a loaded gun on him with the serial number scratched off. Things got pretty real. He was arrested went down to the station. They take off his shoes, he’s handcuffed to this bench, and they ask me if I want to go in and interview him. He has tattoos all over his face—scariest guy I’ve ever seen in my life. I’m like, “No…I don’t want to go.” There was no reason for me to go interview him but I did end up going in to talk to him. He ended up being a fan of Breaking Bad, which is pretty funny.

What was your reaction to the script and this idea of these characters pulling off a “triple 9?”
God, I loved this script. I knew with John holding the reigns it was going to be such a brutal telling of this story but in a grounded way. I didn’t know what “triple 9” meant before shooting this film but it absolutely makes sense. If someone wants to cause a distraction in the police force, that’s definitely the way to do it. I love the story.

Early in the movie, you and Norman have a pivotal scene together. I think it’s such an important scene because you have to establish a lot of the emotional stakes for what’s to come for those characters.
Norman and I have been friends for the past sixteen, seventeen years. It’s the first time we’ve worked together, and we’re playing brothers, so we already have that bond, that love there. That scene you’re talking about was an added scene we shot after we were done shooting. They wanted to do just that—raise the stakes, really let people know that these guys aren’t just friends; they’re brothers. They love each other. It was great. I love that scene.

There are similarities between this character and Jesse Pinkman. Do you feel constrained by how iconic that character is?
I definitely don’t see Jesse Pinkman leaving me anytime soon. I know for the rest of my life I’m going to be called “bitch.” I gotta take it in stride, you know? I’m very blessed to have played such an iconic character [on a] show that became a part of television history. He’s a part of pop culture. It’s all about trying to do something different from that guy. This is really the first role since that show where my character’s picking up a pipe. I get offered drug addict roles all the time, on a weekly basis. I just try to stay away from that. But this script was impossible to ignore. It was beautiful. And, of course, John Hillcoat was the first name I noticed before I started reading it. It was a great ride, but when [my character] picked up the pipe, I was like, “Aww…Does he have to do that?”

The movie felt a lot like Heat.
Yeah. Heat is one of those timeless films. I really hope Triple 9 becomes that. My father-in-law was so excited. “It was like Heat! It’s like Taxi Driver!” I agree with him. It’s one of those gritty, brutal, crazy films.

You’re an actor who acts with his whole body. I appreciate that. Is it something you think about when you’re on camera or no?
It just kind of comes with the territory for me. Every character’s a little different. The only similarity is that I tend to gravitate toward characters that are going through a lot, emotionally. I think emotions run through your entire body. You kind of put yourself in a situation and force yourself to believe in whatever’s going on and hopefully people buy it.

In Need For Speed you were at the head of the ensemble. For this movie, it’s more of an egalitarian mix. How are those experiences different?
[One’s] less work, less shooting days. But I love them both. I love the ensemble cast. There are twelve main characters in this film and everyone has such a pivotal part in the story. With Need For Speed, I was in almost every scene. It was a lot of work.

What about the next movie, Eye in the Sky? What’s it like going from playing a criminal in this movie to playing someone who’s straight-laced and in the military?
I do play the darker side of things. But I always try to bring some sort of heart to my characters. With Triple 9, he’s technically a bad guy but you feel for him. He has a line he will not cross and this is that line, so he’s desperate to stop it from happening.

He’s really the hero of the movie.
Finally, someone said it! [laughs] It’s great being the bad guy and it’s also great being the good guy.

Who’s an actor that would be a dream for you to work with?
Oh man, there’s so many. I think probably Daniel Day-Lewis. He’s my favorite actor, for sure.

How about actors who aren’t alive?
You’re really changing things up on me, man! I would love to work with Marilyn Monroe. She’s such an idol, such a legend. I’d just love to kind of hang out with her in between takes and see what she’s all about.

Teenagers can be incredibly frustrating, but maybe much of this frustration comes from knowing that we were once the same. Perhaps this is why Everlasting—a story centered around two teenagers—can be both relatable and compelling. It manages this in spite of our personal grievances and despite our insistence that we know better. There are certainly shortcomings to be found, but Everlasting is in itself a tale about remembering—and valuing—the positive over the negative, and perhaps it’s not a stretch for the film to ask the same of its critics.

At the very beginning, we are told by Matt (Adam David) that his girlfriend Jessie (Valentina de Angelis) has been murdered. The plot is straightforward enough from here, with a search for answers being the main driving force for our young protagonist. As Matt begins by providing their background story, we learn that he and Jessie are troubled high school students with only one source of true happiness: their love for each other. They spend their aesthetically gothic days fantasizing about death and throwing caution to the wind, and it’s only too obvious they believe themselves invincible, as teenagers often do. Jessie in particular is shown to be overly attracted to a darker lifestyle, intensely absorbed in the escape it offers her. When she decides to follow her dreams of becoming a model, Matt has no choice but to be supportive, reluctant as he is to lose her. The two drive to opportunity-laden L.A. from their hometown of Denver, with Matt using their trip as an opportunity to create a project for his film class. But after Jessie’s death, this project takes on a drastically different shape, thus becoming the story of Matt’s journey to find her killer. Told in a non-linear cumulation of his footage from both trips as well as moments of third party voyeurism, Everlasting works towards a resolution whilst keeping a strong footing on the subject of love.

Though the story may not be groundbreaking—and is undoubtedly a commentary on how such events happen all too often in real life—Everlasting manages to carve a space for itself by taking a more human approach than most. Matt states that he does not want Jessie to become just another name in a list, and the film tries its absolute hardest to ensure this doesn’t happen. Instead, Matt (as our main storyteller) painstakingly attempts to provide a complete picture of Jessie as he knew and loved her; while this does serve to create an emotional attachment for the audience, it also inadvertently highlights a lack of substance to Jessie’s character. We are provided with fleeting reasons for her often concerning behaviour and personality, such as being raised by a single mother whose own behaviour is far from perfect, but without delving into this relationship further it is hard to ascertain exactly why Jessie is so attracted to the darkness of life. As such, her “tortured soul” identity ends up feeling somewhat superficial. Matt, on the other hand, is clearly given more thought and nuance, and becomes much more cemented in our minds as a sympathetic figure.

Interestingly, many of the less central characters grab the audience’s attention and hold elements of intrigue, and this is largely due to sincere acting by more than a few cast members. Elizabeth Röhm must be mentioned for her heartbreakingly wonderful portrayal of Jessie’s flawed mother, and Pat Healy demonstrates once again that he knows all too well how to make an audience distinctly uncomfortable. As Jessie and Matt, both de Angelis and David provide solid turns in their roles, but at times present themselves underprepared to be the objects of such focus as the film provides. Director Anthony Stabley’s conviction to keep humanity at the center of Everlasting requires the beautiful, close shots of the equally attractive actors at work, but evidently proves challenging for both. However, any moments that may seem strained can be overlooked thanks to the stunning cinematography, which works not only to be visually pleasing, but more importantly, to thoroughly deliver an environment of everything the film is selling: youth, beauty and love.

The film has done particularly well within the horror community—having even won the Jury Award at the Nevermore festival recently—but it would be disingenuous to actually call it horror. At most, it’s drama with an edge. This isn’t to detract from its quality, but more to suggest that it perhaps has a more fitting place outside of the genre it is marketed toward, particularly given the rather specific (and misleading) horror-centered focus of its trailer. And so, while Everlasting may at times be as naive as its two protagonists, it also manages to be just as intriguing.

In the empty landscapes of rural Washington, a meeting is about to go down between two people: Abe (Conner Marx), a young journalist trying to make a name for himself, and Debra (Carol Roscoe), who works for the US government. Their meeting is the result of a series of back and forth communications, with Debra wanting to release sensitive information involving national security. From the moment they meet in person, the word “trust” gets thrown around more than once. For Abe, it’s making sure Debra’s a legitimate source while trying to stop her from being spooked so easily; for Debra, it’s a matter of not getting caught handing out classified information. They may be surrounded by vast flatlands, but their location exposes them just as much as it exposes anyone who might be watching them. Over the next hour and a half (shown almost entirely in real-time), Abe and Debra will try to trust each other in order to get what they want. On the other hand, viewers can place their full trust in writer/director Nathan Williams’ hands. If There’s a Hell Below is the kind of back to basics take on a conspiracy thriller that feels refreshing and riveting at the same time, with a confidence behind the camera that establishes a new name brimming with potential. Here’s a film where the word “Hitchcockian” is not just apt; it’s earned.

For its slim runtime, Williams goes against expectations by making as much empty space as possible. When it comes to story, it’s not about the specifics of why Abe and Debra get together. Her specific role in the government is never expanded on beyond a meaningless job title, and the information she has for Abe doesn’t get explained or broken down (all she has is a list of names on a flash drive). Williams’ deliberate avoidance of specifics helps make the situation easier to get pulled into, as it gives him the ability to hone in on the dramatic core: two people entering a possibly life or death situation, with no way of knowing they’re safe until they’re unsafe. Williams’ set-up doesn’t provide any evidence of Abe or Debra being who they say they are, and no knowledge of whether or not they’re being watched. They meet in the open countryside with no one else around them, but they act like they’re in an enclosed space with eyes all around them.

Initially, Abe and Debra’s characterizations come across as a little too familiar, with Abe’s ignorant cockiness making him look less like an opportunistic journalist and more like a victim in the first act of a slasher movie. But like everything else in Williams’ film, it’s a deliberate move. Abe turns out to be a small-time reporter desperately looking for a big break, and his behaviour comes from not realizing the stakes of the situation. Early on, when Debra gets scared once she sees a parked SUV in the distance, Abe decides to drive right up to the vehicle to show her she has nothing to worry about. It’s an annoying sequence until Williams throws in a nice punchline, one that’s predictable but pulled off with such aplomb it’s hard not to crack a smile.

The assured direction extends out to the film’s look, an aspect that’s vital to why If There’s a Hell Below works so effectively. Taking full advantage of the spacious locations, Williams and cinematographer Christopher Messina create one painterly image after another, at times evoking Andrew Wyeth’s Christina’s World but with a more sinister edge. It’s an impressive control over mood and atmosphere that heightens the intensity, especially in the latter half when the film closes on a terrific, wordless epilogue, a mini-narrative that drops just enough information for viewers to piece everything together. It’s that kind of cool, confident filmmaking that makes If There’s a Hell Below a highly entertaining shock to the system, a thriller that shows how a skillful hand can make all the difference between a good film and a great one.

It’s hard to believe it’s been almost a decade since the New French Extremity—a group of French genre films united by, to put it simply, a lot of disgusting gore—exploded with titles like Frontier(s), Inside, and Sheitan coming out over a short time span. In 2008, the movement reached its peak with Martyrs, Pascal Laugier’s controversial take on martyrdom that had people fleeing for the exits. Martyrs has gained a strong following since it came out, partly because of how it transcends the expectations of an exploitation film. It’s a film that shows women being systematically tortured, but labeling it as “torture porn” would be wrong. Laugier examined the meaning of being a martyr, along with the connection between immense suffering and transcendence through pain. Martyrs stuck out not just because of its gore; it was a philosophical horror film, one with significant ambitions that combined intellectual themes and the kind of horrifying content associated with the lowest common denominator. Even the film’s harshest critics couldn’t deny that Laugier, despite his methods, was trying to say something.

So what happens when US filmmakers take Laugier’s work and adapt it for English-speaking audiences? After several false starts, this new Martyrs has finally come to fruition via the help of directors Kevin and Michael Goetz, The Revenant screenwriter Mark L. Smith, and horror “it” producer Jason Blum. Blumhouse, the production company responsible for the Paranormal Activity and Insidious franchises, is known for its successful approach to making horror films: make a film for a low budget, then have major studios pick up and release them. It’s a successful model because it takes advantage of horror’s self-generating interest (genre films don’t need big stars to attract moviegoers) while providing big profits given the low production cost. That is, in a nutshell, the model behind multiple horror success stories over the past several years, including films like The Purge and Sinister.

Blumhouse has tweaked and perfected a micro-budget machine, and as much as the company can tout its increased creative control or ability to produce outside of the studio system, it’s still a machine. Laugier handled writing and directing duties on the original Martyrs, and it’s obvious that it’s a film with his individual stamp on it. With the remake, the Goetz brothers and Smith transplant Laugier’s work to a format more focused on quick returns and basic thrills, a change that’s like shoving a square peg into a round hole. The set-up is more or less identical to Laugier’s film: Lucie (Troian Bellisario) claims she was kidnapped and tortured by a group of people as a child before escaping, although police found no evidence backing up her story. Fifteen years after escaping, Lucie finally tracks down her kidnappers—a seemingly ordinary couple with two teenage children—and ruthlessly slaughters them in their own home. She calls on Anna (Bailey Noble), her best friend growing up at the orphanage, to help her remove the bodies, although Anna starts doubting Lucie’s sanity given she just gunned down a family without remorse (fair warning: those unfamiliar with either version of Martyrs should stop reading here unless they want to be spoiled).

Since this is a horror movie, Lucie’s claims turn out to be true. The people she killed did, in fact, torture her as a child, and Anna soon discovers they were part of a cult dedicated to creating martyrs in an attempt to understand what lies in the afterlife. Smith’s screenplay, in what some might point to as a true example of what “Americanizing” something means, dumbs things down to make the religious themes impossible to miss, whether it’s having the cult’s leader (Kate Burton) spell everything out or using the image of a woman burning at the stake. At the very least, Smith does try to change things up from Laugier’s original screenplay in the latter half, honing in on Anna and Lucie’s friendship instead of the barbaric plot they’ve become a part of. But that focus only muddles the thematic content that made up the backbone of Laugier’s film, and Smith makes no efforts to adjust the rest of the source material to his changes.

What Martyrs amounts to is a cheap mess, an attempt to adapt a work more focused on ideas into something designed to provide thrills and action, and the clash between the two modes is an ugly one. The Goetz brothers, try as they might to claim they’re doing their own spin on the original, settle into what feels like a shot for shot remake; the punishing final act of Laugier’s film, designed to make its climactic moment of transcendence all the more powerful, gets replaced by a vengeance-fueled firefight instead; the violence gets toned down significantly, a choice that could have worked had it not reeked of the producers trying to ensure they’d get an R rating; and the ending tries to maintain the original’s ambiguity while tying up Anna and Lucie’s storyline in a way that betrays the film’s own themes. Martyrs is nothing more than a complete waste of time, a remake whose own irrelevance dominates every frame. Rather than try to respect the original content beyond its gory surface, Martyrs prefers to trace over its more violent moments, cherry picking what it needs to make something more inclined to entertain than provoke. Unlike Laugier’s unforgettable film, it’s best to forget this version of Martyrs ever happened.

I was doing some research on plot twists in movies and the majority of the lists feature movies that have plot twists that occur at the end. I won’t list them all, but films like The Sixth Sense, Psycho, and Sleepaway Camp are a few examples of films where the surprise comes so late, it makes the viewer reconsider everything that happened before it (and maybe even inspire a re-watch of the film to look for missed clues). In director Adam Schindler‘s new thriller, Intruders, the twist doesn’t want a re-watch, it wants the viewer’s attention as soon as possible, occurring early in the film.

Beth Riesgraf plays Anna, a 20-something young woman living with, and caring for, her sick brother, Conrad (Timothy T. McKinney). Anna is trapped in her own home by acute agoraphobia. But one of the few other people she has contact with is the young man (Rory Culkin) who delivers daily prepared meals to the parentless siblings. When her brother dies, Anna inherits a considerable sum of money, left to her entirely in cash. A trio of thugs (Jack Kesy, Joshua Mikel, and Martin Starr) catch wind of this windfall and attempt to break into the home. But they didn’t account for her agoraphobia keeping her home. While the thieves turn the house upside-down looking for the cash, Anna turns the tables on them and the terrorizers become the terrified.

Early on, Intruders looks as if it’s going to be just another home invasion thriller. After the set-up leaves the protagonist physically trapped (by agoraphobia) and emotionally vulnerable (sad because of her brother’s death), she spends the better part of the rest of the film trying to outwit her attackers while overcoming her own personal issues. It’s pretty comparable to Panic Room in that way.

To get to the twist, one must first tolerate the clichéd first act (although, to be fair, that cliché helps make the twist all the more twisted). It starts out well, but once the dimensionally bereft bad guys appear (the Alpha Male, his weaker brother, and the sadist), Schindler’s direction becomes more of a stale paint-by-numbers. Still, the early going has its bright spots, led by veteran Riesgraf, who gives a terrific performance as the grieving sister and trapped agoraphobe. Another veteran—from the other side of the camera—is set decorator John Gathright, whose eye for detail allows Anna’s house to say a lot about her fragile psyche.

Then the twist happens.

I’ll issue the Spoiler Alert now, since the twist is its selling point. Without it, the film is just another home invasion thriller. In fact, not only does the twist happen early in Intruders, it’s sold about halfway through the trailer as the reason to see the film in the first place. You have now been warned.

The twist is that the basement of Anna’s house is something of an underground prison and torture chamber. It’s complete with retracting stairs to trap people in the basement, an assortment of instruments designed to deliver pain, and a few other unsettling things best not mentioned here. Anna knows her way around all these things, giving her something of a Jekyll/Hyde persona, only softly sinister. It’s a delicious twist, offering the viewer everything from the refreshing sight of a power struggle shifting to the woman’s favor (instead of the man’s), to the relief that the film is not just another home invasion thriller. Riesgraf revs up her performance here, turning out her character’s lifetime of psychological oppression into a measured burn.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is once the twist happens and the viewer’s excitement is ignited about the endless possibilities these turned tables offer. Intruders quickly disintegrates and exposes itself as having no real possibilities. The drop-off is jarring. Once the trio of intruders (and that delivery boy, too) are in the basement, what more is there to do other than have the woman terrorize the men? Once that trick is played the first time, the film can only manage to limp along as home invasion thriller-turned-torture horror. The only maintaining interest is wanting to know why this frightful basement exists. It’s explained, and quite satisfactorily. But that explanation should be the reward; instead, it’s the consolation prize.

Hollywood is a town full of bad ideas. So when a great one comes along but is poorly executed, it’s more than an opportunity missed, it’s an opportunity wasted. With Intruders (previously titled Shut In), director Schindler and screenwriters T.J. Cimfel and David White prove to be another in a long line of filmmakers guilty of being so enamored by the originality of their twist, they simply let that twist try to carry them instead of building a strong showcase around it.

Quentin Tarantino’s last few films have crept closer to cinema’s theatrical roots. Sequences occur in contained rooms, recalling the claustrophobic, object-driven narrative environment established by the physicality of the stage. These scenes are dominated not only by the director’s trademark dialogue but also by an assured language of compositional details, which guide our eyes through the frame and divulge information with a meticulous sense of craft. Tarantino’s detractors are bothered by his compulsion to bloat his works with references to cinema’s long, colorful history, as well as an occasional penchant for comically distorting his vested tone. But after recently having the opportunity to re-watch Inglourious Basterds, it became clear that the work overall was more significant than the handful of lame gestures that prevented me from outright embracing it. A filmmaker calling attention to himself is often irritating, especially when he uses dialogue to inject his own opinion of what he’s created. But this isn’t, and shouldn’t be, anything but an unfortunate stumble along a journey that’s far more complex and rewarding than the singling-out of that gesture would imply.

The Hateful Eight is Tarantino’s most confined feature yet, which initially calls into question his use of the 70mm format. Upon first blush, the decision registers as an arbitrary homage to the golden age of American Westerns. While it is that to some degree, it’s also a method to capture minuscule details in the expressions and appearances of each duplicitous character.

The film begins in the early stages of a Wyoming blizzard as John Ruth “The Hangman” (Kurt Russell, channeling The Duke) nears the end of a journey to collect his reward, Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh). Along the way, they encounter two stranded individuals who Ruth reluctantly adopts as passengers. The first man is the clever and cruel Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson), a bounty hunter we learn fought in the union army during the Civil War and the closest thing the film has to a lead character. The second scoundrel to be happened upon is Chris Mannix (a viscerally animated Walton Goggins), who identifies himself as the newly appointed sheriff in the town of Red Rock, where the entire ensemble is headed.

The four arrive at Minnie’s Haberdashery, a cramped, one-room lodge where they meet the remaining faces that make up the titular hateful eight. Bruce Dern’s Sanford Smithers was a Confederate general during the war. He has made the trek to Wyoming in the twilight hour of his life hoping to learn how his son was killed. John Gage (Michael Madsen), is a reserved, weathered cowboy who is almost certainly hiding something. Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth, chewing scenery in the best possible way) is a sly Englishman who claims to be Red Rock’s new hangman. Last but not least is Bob (Demián Bichir), the suspiciously gauche steward purporting himself as an employee of Minnie, thus the caretaker of the haberdashery in her absence.

It’s easy to argue that the narrative in which characters trapped in an inescapable setting are driven to face one another has been cinematically exhausted in decades prior. But Tarantino’s perspective on popular hatreds harbored throughout American history is strangely essential and unpacked with a necessary dose of self-awareness. He illustrates the tight-knit relationship between prejudice and contempt by procuring a tonal delirium punctuated by comic terror. Underneath lines of dialogue, which are programmed to register as humorous, lie disturbing implications about who our characters are and what they represent. At first, animosity is personified only through verbal slander. When tensions begin to rise, Mobray decides to split the room in half, sending Confederate sympathizers to one corner and supporters of the Union to the other. Later on, as viewers familiar with the sensibilities of Tarantino would predict, this animosity is emulated through the graphic mutilation of flesh. The segregation, however, isn’t the first instance in which folly manifests itself physically.

A percentage of those who see The Hateful Eight will be crushed by the weight of unflinching cruelty that man is capable of. But the film, circumventing all expectations, has the audacity to end on a note of coarsely drawn optimism. We’re shown the worst sensibilities of the soul through bloodied eyes, and as the tumult begins to dissipate, it becomes clear that someone’s hatred eventually had to be compromised. In a sea of gore with no redemption in sight, a subconscious shift in mindset embodies what is perhaps the most vulgar step toward progress ever captured on film.

If Jean-Luc Goddard directed a feature-length episode of The Twilight Zone, it would probably resemble The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun. That description will likely leave you either intrigued or completely turned off, and this film itself is just as polarizing.

Director Joann Sfar’s neo-noir thriller finds Dany (Freya Mavor), a young secretary, taking her boss Michel’s fancy American sports car out on a joyride. Her drive leads her to a secluded seaside town where everyone she comes across seems to know her, despite the fact that she has no recollection of having met any of them. As Dany begins to consider the existence of a possible impostor, she discovers a dead body in the trunk of the car, and things only get more chaotic from there.

From the start, The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun is extremely stylish. Perhaps so stylish that it lacks substance in areas where it’s absolutely vital. The frequent use of split screens adds significant entertainment value to some of the more mundane sequences, but after a while the sharp editing loses its luster, and the lack of meat on the screenplay’s bones becomes more noticeable. It’s not that the plot isn’t interesting—on paper, it certainly is—but there’s so much downtime that the film feels quite lackadaisical. There are numerous moments when what is happening in the story is a bit difficult to understand, and in those times, the sharp stylistic nature doesn’t make the muddled storytelling any easier to follow.

Most of the sexual elements feel forced and awkward, which is unusual considering that the film is decidedly French in every other way. Mavor is an objectively beautiful young woman, and Dany has a certain aura about her that is alluring. But there’s a severe lack of romantic chemistry between her and the potential love interests. Aside from that, performances are generally solid, if not a bit bizarre, with Mavor bringing a mischievous charm to every scene. Nymphomaniac’s Stacy Martin appears in a brief, but effective role as Michel’s wife, Anita, and the interactions between her and Dany are strangely evocative. It’s interesting to watch the relationship between two women who are connected through a man with whom they have drastically different relations. Unfortunately that aspect, along with many other subplots in the film, remain relatively unexplored in the end. It’s as if Sfar is trying to keep things ambiguous on every single level, which eventually grows tiresome. Some mystery is great, but too much mystery is simply frustrating.

The remote nature of the locations gives the film a peculiar aesthetic that makes the inevitable plot revelations all the more impactful. Warm, hazy cinematography from Manuel Dacosse sets the stage for a lighthearted love story, and the subversion that comes shortly after is welcomed.

The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun is a thoroughly disappointing film because there are moments when its weird, suspenseful charm really begins to shine. But those moments never stick around long enough to have a lasting effect. On a technical scale, there is a lot to appreciate about the film, but its screenplay is too much of a jumbled mess to look past. Under some of the excess cinematic fat, there’s a quality film to be found. But where it stands, there’s not enough bite behind the film’s admittedly compelling bark.

Featuring shades of murder mystery and conspiracy film, Danish crime thriller The Keeper of Lost Causes follows a detective struggling to find his place in the world after being reassigned. Given strict orders to merely read through cold case files, Detective Carl Mørck (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) and his new assistant, Assad (Fares Fares), quickly become obsessed with solving the disappearance of politician Merete Lynggaard (Sonja Richter). The search for answers leads the duo down the path of the average mystery/procedural, where they run into a typical cast of characters.

In spite of its traditional, somewhat generic plot, The Keeper of Lost Causes keeps things entertaining thanks to a few subversions that help maintain an element of surprise. A brain-damaged witness provides a unique aspect, and the manner in which Carl and Assad go about interrogating the young man is oddly suspenseful. Unfortunately, The Keeper of Lost Causes lacks the element that makes the greatest detective stories so engaging—we never really come to know Carl and Assad. Only the basic nature of their characters is revealed (Carl is more of a hothead while Assad is a bit more meticulous), instead of providing development or a backstory. Performances from the two leads are good enough—certainly passable—but since the film simply doesn’t give the actors the opportunity to showcase their skills, the characters are forced to take a back seat to their investigation itself. With a running time of just over ninety minutes, there’s no reason why more character development couldn’t have been included, and it likely would’ve made the film feel more complete. But The Keeper of Lost Causes is entertaining enough to get a recommendation for fans of this brand of cinema.

Writer-director Afia Nathaniel’s debut feature Dukhtar (Daughter) is an important and urgent film depicting the unfortunately accepted practice in Pakistan of a child (in this case, as it often is, a girl) being given away for marriage to settle a blood feud. But even more than that, Dukhtar is a thrilling and vibrant adventure film that beautifully captures the love a mother has for her daughter, and the lengths she will go in order to ensure her daughter’s protection.

The film begins when 15-year-old Allah Rakhi is given in marriage to the older tribal chief Daulat Khan (Asif Khan). Ever since the marriage, Allah Rakhi has been completely separated from her family and robbed of finishing any education she could’ve hoped for. Later, a now grown Allah Rakhi (Samiya Mumtaz) shares a 10-year-old daughter, Zainab (Saleha Aref), with Daulat. Upon learning that Daulat has promised Zainab to rival tribe leader Tor Gul (Abdullah Jaan), Allah Rakhi decides to flee with her young daughter to save Zainab from the same fate she suffered. After a harrowing escape the mother and daughter come upon truck driver Sohail (Mohib Mirza), who agrees to help them escape. From there, the film excels as the journey bonds the three of them together, creating the emotional core of the film.

The success of this intriguing story is tied to Nathaniel’s assured direction, who creates one of the more stunning debuts of the last several years. Nathaniel’s biggest triumph is that, while dealing with large and important issues, she never allows them to overshadow the narrative at hand, showing a strong command of story and structure. The pacing may feel rushed at the beginning, but it adds to the nightmarish quality of the early escape scenes before letting the film open up in the second half.

Helping Nathaniel accomplish the transition from the escape to the journey that follows is the work of cinematographer and editor Armughan Hassan. Hassan does excellent work using the film’s mountainous locations to capture some of the most lush and beautiful images of the year, a far cry from the chaotic and claustrophobic visuals filling the early scenes. The use of color is another strength in his work, often contrasting the bright wardrobe of Allah Rakhi and Zainab against the harsh, muted tones of their surroundings. The only element of Hassan’s visuals that doesn’t work is a reliance on soft focus and rack focusing during a few scenes, but not enough can be said about the beautiful landscapes Hassan captures, bringing the work of Terrence Malick to mind (which is just about the highest praise I can think of for a cinematographer).

In front of the camera, Samiya Mumtaz delivers a wonderful performance as a mother doing everything she can to save her child against all odds. It’s a performance that can be gut-wrenching at times, but is almost never without hope. Mohib Mirza is strong as well, providing a welcome presence in the latter half of the film as his character begins to care and look out for Allah Rakhi and Zainab. And Saleha Aref is solid in the role of Zainab, but doesn’t have as much to do as she takes a back seat to her two co-stars as the film progresses. Outside of these three the rest of the supporting cast is far too one-note and ineffective to leave much of an impression, their near mustache-twirling villainy out-of-place amongst an otherwise great film.

Overall, Dukhtar is a powerful and moving film capable of providing more thrills than your average blockbuster, a rare and exciting combination from an emerging filmmaker. With a mostly strong cast and skillful crew, this is a film that shouldn’t be missed. And it will be interesting to see where an interesting voice like Nathaniel will go from here.

Dukhtar is currently playing in limited release across the US. To find out more information about the film and where it’s playing, visit www.dukhtarthefilm.com.

English-Jordanian filmmaker Naji Abu Nowar crafts an assured and sharply focused debut feature in Theeb, a clear-cut yet culturally rich tale of survival centered around a young boy from the Ottoman province of Hijaz during World War I. The modest coming of age story has garnered vague comparisons to Lawrence of Arabia, with which it shares not only a time and place but exact filming locations. Nowar smartly inverts Lean’s Western perspective, presenting a distinctly fresh take on familiar territory that proves a simple narrative can become more layered when it transpires from a point of view that seldom receives screen time.

The titular young boy (Jacir Eid Al-Hwietat), whose name we eventually discover means “Wolf” in Arabic, is not thrust into an adventure by chance, but instead willingly follows his brother Hussein (Hussein Salameh Al-Sweilhiyeen) away from their campsite. Hussein has been tasked with aiding another man in guiding a stubborn Englishman (Jack Fox) to his desired destination. The Englishman is quickly angered when Theeb, on several occasions, attempts to examine his various trinkets and possessions. This action and reaction not only characterizes Theeb as a curious youth, but also uses the Englishman as a symbol for a dryly funny jab at the avarice inherent to colonialism, which one can glean Nowar is neither fond of, nor interested in exploring any further. The film seems decidedly more invested in the cultural identity of its region than any potential commentary on a single cultural presence in particular.

That being said, Nowar also maintains an exceptionally narrow and deliberate focus on Theeb. The young boy is prominent in every scene, the narrative never ceasing to unwind from his unique perspective. When gunshots echo over towering hills of sand in the distance, they register not as an intimate or familiar danger, but an emblem of fear, the gravity of which we are just beginning to fully comprehend. It is remarkable how many situations throughout Theeb’s brisk 100-minute run time feel as though we are witnessing them through a boy’s eyes. Very few first-time filmmakers have such a keen ability to interpret their story precisely how it would be perceived by their central character. Perhaps what is most impressive about Nowar’s work here is his ability to frame and divulge information through these deceptively simple gestures.

One could label the film as minimalist without worrying about any receptive indignation. Nothing in Nowar’s picture is ambiguous or difficult, and the storytelling is always lean and direct. Moment by moment, our interest is captured through restrained tension. If Nowar needs to convey that bandits are hunting Theeb, he points the camera at the frightened boy in hiding as opposed to the bloodthirsty bandits, building a form of suspense that is rare in American cinema, one that eats away at audiences slowly, exploiting their fear of the unknown. This approach also enhances our intimacy with Theeb and stays true to the film’s conceit of being seen entirely through his eyes.

Perhaps the only drawback to Nowar’s approach is that it results in a film that registers as relatively slight. After all, the story is admittedly straightforward and its direction is tight, uncompromising in its commitment to depicting a world of warring men through the mindset of a wide-eyed youth. Theeb relies on the care with which its sequences are composed instead of the weight of its comprehensive text. Scenes of tension are smoothly and compellingly integrated into the narrative, which earnestly follows Theeb’s struggle not only to survive but to exercise control over his own story. Nowar stands out as a unique voice with a rooted interest in offering glimpses of culture that feel unburdened by an agenda.

The Keeping Room is the second feature-length film from Daniel Barber, director of the disappointing Harry Brown and Oscar-nominated short film The Tonto Woman. What’s frustrating is that, despite some glimpses of great work found in the film, we’re ultimately left with a disappointing experience similar to Barber’s previous efforts.

Taking place at the end of the Civil War, The Keeping Room starts out with a bang as two rogue Union soldiers and kill a group of women and a man unfortunate enough to cross their paths. But just as quickly as the film steps on the gas, it eases up as the story transitions to a small Southern family’s farm that only houses sisters Augusta (Brit Marling) and Louise (Hailee Steinfeld) along with their slave Mad (Muna Otaru). Any interesting dynamics or tension that could be expected from this situation are pretty much glossed over in the first half of the film, and largely go unexplored. Later, Augusta goes into town to get medicine for Louise and runs into the rogue soldiers Moses (Sam Worthington) and Henry (Kyle Soller) seen at the beginning. This triggers a cat-and-mouse game that continues throughout the rest of the film, as the three women attempt to survive the murderous Moses and Henry.

Guiding the film through a shaky first half are two great performances; Otaru with her endlessly expressive eyes, and Worthington’s menacing presence. And the rest of the cast turn in mostly admirable efforts. Brit Marling is solid in the lead role, but unfortunately her character is also the most uninteresting of the main cast. Hailee Steinfeld is strong at times but severely underwritten, and Kyle Soller does what he can with his thankless role.

Barber makes great use of space and locations, but his direction is a constant source of frustration. He consistently lets the film meander longer than needed, mishandling sequences that should be thrilling and intense. Cinematographer Martin Ruhe does solid work, bringing a cold sense of dread to the film that makes up for some of the unnecessary and ineffective handheld shots. The feminist leanings of Julia Hart’s screenplay are a welcome addition to this bloody western, but the story is overly simple to a fault and only gets interesting in the final minutes. And that’s the ultimate problem with the film; outside of a rambunctious opening and promising conclusion, it not only fails to engage but seems fairly uninterested in doing so.

While the acting helps the film stay afloat and some intriguing ideas are brought up (and then immediately dropped), the film has very little to offer and doesn’t even provide some of the B-Movie thrills that the equally disappointing Harry Brown managed to pull off. So while The Keeping Room isn’t the worst way to spend 90 minutes, there are certainly better ways to fill one’s time.

Split almost perfectly down its center, Lenny Abrahamson‘s Room, based on the bestselling novel by Emma Donoghue, is equal parts heart-stopping thriller and emotionally visceral drama. Few films are as effectively stomach-churning while sustaining emotional connectedness in so compelling a manner. This is what is possible when a novel is perfectly translated to screen and, like Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl screenplay adaptation last year, holds up a keen argument for authors adapting their own work. A far cry from Abrahamson’s decidedly weirder film entry of last year, Frank, Room is an insular (literally) account of a young woman, Ma (Brie Larson, being amazing), doing her best to raise her five-year-old son Jack (Jacob Tremblay, almost stealing the show) in the tiny one-room shack where they are held captive. Pushed to her breaking point and fearing for her son’s safety, Ma is finally driven to enact a harrowing plan to help her son escape and experience the world outside of “room.”

Abrahamson spends the film’s first act focused on the intricacies of life in a tiny room and the inventive and loving ways Ma has devised to keep her son healthy and happy. She cooks him meals on a hot plate, breastfeeds him for added sustenance, and leads him through yoga and running exercises around the room. Through expert use of Jack’s first person narrative scattered throughout the film, we see “room” through his five-year-old eyes. The toilet, the chairs, the television and the wardrobe he often sleeps in all take on distinct and special characteristics as they make up the entirety of Jack’s universe and everything he’s ever known. But most important of all is Ma, and the bond between mother and son is strong and almost feral.

In watching their lives it becomes clear that in the seven years Ma has spent in “room,” and the five that Jack has, a routine has developed. Each night Ma tucks Jack away into the wardrobe, doing her best to shelter him from her captor, Old Nick (Sean Bridgers), when he makes his nightly visit to Ma to take advantage of her. Jack knows the drill, but curiosity gets the better of him one night and he climbs out to have a look at the only other human being he’s ever seen. Ma awakes to find Nick talking to Jack and reacts with a fierce protectiveness. She pays the price and decides once and for all something must be done.

The plan for escape in the film is equal in anxiety to any great heist film, more so because it’s experienced mostly through Jack’s scared understanding of what he is doing. The entire plan rests on him to act, but more than that it relies on him accepting this new truth his mother is revealing to him that there is an entire universe outside of “room” and he needs to choose to leave everything he knows and loves, including his mother. There isn’t an audience alive that won’t be gripping their armrests as the escape scene plays out, and without revealing too much about how the film continues, suffice it to say that Ma and Jack face an entirely new set of demons once they are out in the real world.

The intimate nature of the narrative is what especially allows for the emotional connection one feels for Ma and Jack. They represent the fear everyone shares at being violated so profoundly by another human. One can’t help but imagine what they would attempt or feel in a similar situation. How can anyone prepare for such a thing? Equally so, how can we predict the physical and emotional effects and how they will manifest in the years following such trauma? Jack shows us the resilient nature of children in the way he begins to accept the new world he is experiencing, while Ma is haunted by the world she knew before her kidnapping and how it can never be the same. And both have to get used to a world full of judgment and expectation and an inability to truly understand their experience.

Obviously the film’s writing is what sets it up for success, but Larson and Tremblay’s performances are what elevate this film to perfection and sure-fire award candidacy. Larson manages to juggle portraying an abused woman, a fierce mother, and a PTSD-afflicted young woman who wasn’t allowed to complete her own childhood. Tremblay, and his perfect little lips, expresses the entire range of a five-year-old: wonder, excitement, stubbornness, fear, and child-like unadulterated love. His courage is astounding and the chemistry between Larson and himself is palpable.

There are a few unexplored story threads in the second half that leave us wanting, most especially between Ma and her father played by William H. Macy. And, of course, it’s difficult for there to be a truly satisfying stopping point to the film, as one becomes so attached and invested in the characters it’s natural to wish we could see how their entire lives play out. The film’s lens stays close on its subjects, contributing to the claustrophobic but intimate relationship of its lead characters. The cinematography is a wash of blue and green but manages not to be depressing with its drab scheme.

Room is certainly among the year’s essential viewing and while some may be quick to label it a “difficult watch,” such a description neglects the ultimately life-affirming and passionately affecting story told. Abrahamson has done an amazing job in inviting viewers to consider one of those potentialities no one likes to think about, engaging us with a deeply personal and fantastically told tale of survival and familial bond.

Olga Kurylenko is no stranger to action movies. The Ukrainian-born actress has appeared in several testosterone-fueled flicks, including 2007’s Hitman, 2014’s The November Man, 2012’s Erased, and, perhaps most famously, 2008’s James Bond entry, Quantum of Solace. But in all those films, she was a supporting player behind male stars (respectively) Timothy Olyphant, Pierce Brosnan, Aaron Eckhart, and Daniel Craig. That changes in her latest action entry, Momentum, which puts the actress’ name above the title and her character at the center of the film.

Kurylenko plays Alex Farraday, a thief called out of retirement for one last score. Though this high-tech heist nets Alex and her fellow thieves more than they bargain for. In addition to a cache of diamonds, they swipe a flash drive containing treasonous evidence against a mysterious US Senator (Morgan Freeman). Unfortunately, Alex’s identity is compromised during the heist and the Senator sends a “cleaning crew,” led by Mr. Washington (James Purefoy), to Capetown, South Africa, to kill the thieves and retrieve the drive. But Alex has other intentions.

If the biggest genre sin in film is a horror movie that isn’t scary, a close second has to be an action film that is utterly boring. This is the case with Momentum, brought to the screen by veteran camera operator-turned-rookie director Stephen S. Campanelli. To say it’s boring is not to say Campanelli doesn’t try; he does. It’s just that the screenplay (from Adam Marcus and Debra Sullivan) is a threadbare patchwork of undeveloped characters, underdeveloped ideas, and tired action tropes.

It starts with Alex and that opening gambit. While I’m all for a film fading into the heart of a tense scene already in progress, that scene needs either quick context or a hint of something more cerebral that will payoff later. The intellectualism (such as it is) of Momentum is nowhere near the latter, but the former is abandoned entirely. By the end of the heist, all we know is Alex’s crew stole diamonds (but we don’t know why); we know there is infighting between certain members of the crew (but we don’t know the history); we know Alex’s big “reveal” must be devastating since it’s suggested everyone in the bank be murdered because they saw her face (with no explanation as to why such extreme measures are necessary); and we know Alex came out of retirement for the score (but we don’t know what drove her to retire and come back). None of this is context, it’s convenience—the shortest of shortcuts.

By the end of the heist, the film feels like it’s in the second act of a sequel, like there are things that ought to already be known. They aren’t, and it cripples the film.

Those notes on Alex, by the way, are about as deep as deep as she gets (although there is one other facet that is only hinted at—again for convenience—and another that is revealed too late in the film to actually care), but she’s not alone. Of the other two key characters in this film, Mr. Washington is more caricature than character (although ultimately a pretty good baddie, thanks to Purefoy having some fun with the role), and the Senator is far too much a mystery to be believable (and a waste of Freeman’s talents).

The main plot is no better developed than the heist: Alex has a flash drive, the Senator wants the flash drive, Mr. Washington pursues Alex to retrieve the flash drive. People die in the process. There’s the movie. All that’s left is the action which, because there is nothing cohesive to attach it to, plays as an anthology of violent set-pieces connected by common characters instead of a series of high-octane conflict/resolution moments that advance a story.

That action is decent and it includes everything this type of movie should: guns and explosives, a car chase, fight scenes, etc. And while he doesn’t break any ground, Campanelli has a couple notable moments, but really nothing more than that. In fact, the best scene of the film includes one particularly effective torture scene, with the irony being the torture is only heard; yes, the best scene in the film takes place offscreen.

Put it all together and it’s not an action movie, it’s an arcade game that gives the viewer just enough character background and story information before getting out of the way of the endless cycle of moves.

As for Kurylenko, it’s hard to tell if she can rise to the challenge of carrying an action picture on her own. It’s clear she has the physicality for it, and given she is a woman playing in a genre thats dominated by men, it’s hard not to measure her against the likes of Linda Hamilton (the Terminator films), Sigourney Weaver (the Alien franchise), Charlize Theron as Furiosa from Mad Max Fury Road, and several others. It’s also unfair to do that to her, because the material those women had to work with was far superior to what Kurylenko has had to make due with here.

Momentum might have its moments, but those moments are no match for the onslaught of “meh” the rest of the picture delivers.

Ramin Bahrani makes a loud return with 99 Homes, his follow-up to the disappointingly received At Any Price. Taking his aim at the U.S. housing crisis, Bahrani tells a gripping story that extends out to a damning statement on American capitalism and the exceedingly wealthy one percent. It’s a big step towards the mainstream for Bahrani, boasting a terrific cast and a relevant, necessary subject. And even with a problematic final act, one threatening to sink the entire film, its dramatic strengths end up winning out.

From the first frames, Bahrani blatantly expresses his intentions to generate ire from viewers. Real estate shark Rick Carver (Michael Shannon) looks at a bathroom covered in blood with a body on the toilet. Carver came to evict the homeowner for defaulting on his mortgage, and the owner decided to take his own life rather than vacate. Carver doesn’t care; he tells police the man’s suicide is a selfish act, one that leaves the homeowner’s family to fend for themselves. Within minutes, Bahrani establishes the cruel, emotionless world of his film.

Carver’s next person to evict is Dennis Nash (Andrew Garfield), a construction worker down on his luck. With the housing market crashing, no one has any interest in building homes, meaning little to no construction work. Due to issues with the bank, Nash loses the family home, leaving his mother Lynn (Laura Dern) and son Connor (Noah Lomax) with nowhere to go. Eventually Rick and Dennis’ paths cross again, and Rick ends up hiring Dennis to help clean out vacated homes for him. Dennis resists the idea of working for the man who kicked him out of his home at first, but the high paychecks prove to be too tempting.

Bahrani’s point, along with co-writer Amir Naderi (taken from a story by Bahrani and Bahareh Azimi), is to show the way capitalism has morphed into something monstrous. Nash represents the average hard-working American earning their own success, while Carver symbolizes the way success now defines itself as profiting off the suffering of the less fortunate. Carver’s philosophy on life leaves no room for sentiment or emotions. Dennis continually finds ways to get his family home back, something Carver finds ridiculous. “They’re just boxes,” Carver says to Nash. Bahrani uses Nash and his family to keep the human story elements at the forefront, making Carver’s soulless statements look all the more horrifying.

Garfield does a great job as Nash, giving a believable and emotional performance, but the real highlight is Michael Shannon. Playing a character written as a total villain, Shannon exudes a level of charisma that, combined with having to say most of the film’s more memorable lines, actually makes Carver enjoyable to watch. And even though he’s a cruel, unsympathetic character, his motivations and back story are fleshed out to make his behavior understandable. Carver, like Nash, simply does what he can to survive and prosper, except one of them is willing to go much further than the other to ensure their security.

Sadly, Bahrani feels the need to up the ante of his dramatic stakes, using a major plot point in the latter half to shift things into thriller territory. As the intensity builds, or at least tries to, so does the unsubtle political commentary. It’s an unfortunate move because the last thing the film needs is more emphasis. For that reason the climax falls flat, a stale effort to go out strong turning into poorly misguided melodrama.

Bahrani’s 99 Homes is still a success, even if it’s a small one. Its great cast and effective drama, at least for the majority of the film, are undeniably compelling. If At Any Price is Bahrani’s failed attempt to break into the major leagues, 99 Homes corrects that mistake.

Originally published as part of our coverage for the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival.

It’d be hard for anyone to poke holes in Sicario, a dark, pulpy thriller crafted exceptionally well by director Denis Villeneuve and his team. The story starts as a slow-burn mystery, following Kate Macer (Emily Blunt), a wary FBI agent slung head-first into a shady government task force mission meant to cleanse the U.S./Mexico border of drugs, corruption, and violence. As the streets fill with blood we slowly uncover, with Kate, more and more of the truth behind her new team’s blatantly unethical methods of crime-fighting, the film develops into a tense, action-packed scramble that will leave you gasping for breath.

Sicario is so confidently presented that many of its finer details may go under-appreciated. One subtlety that comes to mind is the sense of traversal Villeneuve creates to immerse us in the story’s nightmarish setting. Early in the film, we see Kate traveling with her team in a caravan of armed vehicles, rolling through the streets of Juarez en route to apprehending a suspect that may lead them to the head of the cartel. We see bodies hanging under an overpass like aging meat, their bodies mutilated, blood dried. Aerial shots of Mexico fill the screen with orange, dusty earth, emphasizing the fact that the Americans are invaders in a sprawling, buzzing hornet’s nest. Cinematographer Roger Deakins is invaluable, shooting Mexico as a forbidden place polluted by death and despair.

The care Villeneuve puts into making these sequences, in which we take time to watch the team travel from point A to point B, is the core of what makes Sicario so engrossing. The tension builds with each gruesome thing we see, each morally indefensible act Kate is forced to participate in. The storytelling evokes a sinking feeling of “I’m not supposed to be here” that makes every little moment terrifying in its own, twisted way. It’s one of those great movies that forces you to go at its pace rather than pandering to yours. It can be unbearably intense at times, which in turn makes it an unforgettable, white-knuckle experience.

Blunt is supported by two of the industry’s best, Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro. Brolin plays a Department of Defense consultant named Matt who acts as the veritable keeper of secrets on the task force’s. He’s a laid-back, Dude-like agent who only gets serious when he’s on the front lines or when Kate is badgering him for the truth. The enigmatic shadow hanging over the movie is Del Toro’s Alejandro, a skilled killer and torturer whose presence on the team worries Kate maybe more than anything. Why is he here, and who does he actually work for?

This is one of the best performances of Del Toro’s career. As Alejandro, he intimidates his prey not just by hurting them (though he does loads of that), but by invading their space. In the cramped back seat of a car, he extracts information from a corrupt cop not by punching him, but by driving his finger into his hostage’s ear canal. When the hostage refuses to talk, he leans his body weight on him, driving his shoulder up under his chin as if to say in a twisted gesture of dominance. When we learn the truth behind Alejandro’s motivations, the character and performance become even richer.

The second half of the film would be standard action fare if stood on its own, but when stood on the foundation of paranoia and confusion built in the first half, it’s volcanic, heart-stopping entertainment. The story’s revelations don’t come easy or quickly, but when they do, they’re rattling and resonant and will stick with you for days.

Matthew Heineman’s documentary Cartel Land was a shock to the system, taking us deep into the belly of the border drug war, and Sicario serves as a perfect narrative companion, exploring the seedy underworld through a more poetic, explicitly violent lens. Does the Sicario demonize Mexico? No. It considers the psychology of the people who drive the conflict that ravages those terrorized towns on the border and questions the nature of U.S. involvement. Villeneuve, his cast, and crew have made an undeniable, powerful film that works on so many levels it’s scary.

In cinema, it seems almost impossible to raise the stakes any higher than by putting an infant child in a dangerous situation. Many have argued that this is a cheap trope that is exploited to create suspense and elicit an emotional response from audiences. While that criticism may very well be true in some cases, there is nothing cheap about David Farr’s startling directorial debut The Ones Below.

After a decade-long relationship, Kate (Clémence Poésy) and her husband Justin (Stephen Campbell Moore) get pregnant with their first child. Shortly thereafter, new neighbors move in to the flat below them. Jon (David Morrissey) and Theresa (Laura Birn), another married couple expecting their first child, immediately express their desire to befriend the somewhat hesitant Kate and Justin. In typical psychological thriller fashion, a series of traumatic events follow. Kate grows increasingly paranoid, convinced that Jon and Theresa have sinister plans. Of course, Jon thinks his wife is delusional and overreacting. Fearing for the wellbeing of her newborn son, Kate becomes determined to uncover the truth about the couple below before it’s too late.

Longtime film fans will quickly notice an apparent Polanski influence, as the film is Rosemary’s Baby meets Carnage, with a healthy does of The Hand That Rocks the Cradle thrown in for good measure. Farr never pulls his punches, resulting in an emotionally draining film that remains equally woeful and unsettling. When it’s not tugging at the heartstrings with sequences of bleakness and family drama, it’s creeping under the skin with some genuinely suspenseful moments that feel anything but safe. There’s a legitimate sense of danger throughout that gives The Ones Below a truly alluring nature.

It doesn’t avoid the cliché moments that are found in similar movies, but Farr manages to keep suspense high regardless. Even the wildly cliché moment where the unsuspecting mother hears a frightening noise through the baby monitor is crafted with severe tension. Once Kate determines that there’s something horrifyingly wrong with the downstairs couple, she breaks into their home and discovers loads of incriminating evidence of their ulterior motives. Of course, it is all quickly hidden before her husband manages to see it—making Kate appear as though she is completely losing her mind. We’ve all seen these exact scenes time and time again in film—yet Farr has a way of making them not only feel fresh but also strangely unpredictable and tense.

A haunting, eerie score sets the stage for Kate’s crippling descent into madness. From there, Farr questions if Jon and Theresa are completely innocent and Kate is just a paranoid woman who is having difficulty entering into motherhood. Normally, this would come across as a red herring, but The Ones Below is such a daring, intelligently crafted film that it feels completely possible for all expectations to be violently subverted.

Set in the United Kingdom, there’s a classic England feel to The Ones Below in more ways than one. From the atmospheric, often dreary setting, to the overt classiness of the characters, there’s an almost sophisticated aura. Effective cinematography, with an excellent use of zooms, is perhaps the biggest technical highlight of the film. Director of photography Ed Rutherford (A Long Way from Home) truly rises to the occasion.

Farr’s debut is impressive, delivering everything that one would desire out of a modern thriller. Complete with multiple unexpected twists, empathetic characters, and an unshakable darkness, The Ones Below is one of the most suspenseful films of the year—and one that shouldn’t be missed by fans of the genre.

It can’t be entirely coincidental that last year’s breakout horror film, The Babadook, was centered around the frustrating and intimate relationship of a mother and her child and this year’s best horror film—it’s true, I’m putting it in writing—is very similarly themed. In Goodnight Mommy, from Austrian directors Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz who also wrote the script, instead of a mother wary of her high-strung child, two twin brothers become suspicious of their mother when she returns from plastic surgery with her face in bandages. What The Babadook did so brilliantly was to fluctuate between two horror-mother norms: the mother as savior (think Poltergeist’s Diane Freeling) and the mother as an evil threat (think Carrie’s Margaret White). Goodnight Mommy similarly plays with these horror expectations of mothers but keeps its audience guessing by placing the vantage point in the immature, and therefore unreliable, eyes of two nine-year-old twin boys.

With no sense of what the children’s mother (Susanne Wuest) was like before she arrives back home in full facial bandages, the film is immediately set up for our trust to lie wholly with Elias and Lukas (Elias Schwarz and Lukas Schwarz), a pair of boys who love to roam the woods and fields around their country home, collecting bugs and caring for animals. When their mother returns after surgery—and through an awkward guessing game she plays with the boys it’s revealed she’s a famous TV personality, so it’s likely cosmetic—the boys take the brunt of her sudden mood swings and apparent preferential treatment of one twin over the other. She is volatile and unreasonably strict. When her behavior gets stranger and her temper more intense, the boys—their insatiable curiosity evident—test their mother and track her behavior in an attempt to prove their theory.

The film picks up—and indeed shifts darkly—in its second half when the boys plan, first, to escape the intruder they believe is posing as their mother, and then when that fails, to take action into their own hands to get answers. I’m not going to sugarcoat it, things get squirmy. Even more squirmy because of the constant question of whether or not the violence is or is not deserved. There’s an excellent eleventh-hour reveal that this viewer certainly did not predict and certainly won’t elaborate on. Suffice it to say the film excellently holds focus to divert from the reality of the situation.

The Schwarz brothers carry the film incredibly well for their age and the relatively small amount of dialogue involved. Their constant discomfort at trying first to please their mother and understand her actions, and then at the dawning terror of believing she isn’t who they think, is perfectly conveyed in their nine-year-old fidgeting and wide eyes. They constantly convey that childlike hesitancy in questioning elders or believing a family member could ever be capable of anything but loving behavior. And when things get serious it’s that innocent quality that amplifies the horror of their behavior. It’s so easy for children to be evil in horror films, something we’ve come to expect even, and Fiala and Franz don’t let the boys fall squarely into that space. Their intentions—to get their mother back—are so pure it’s hard not to justify the actions of a pair of scared (and perhaps too imaginative) little boys.

The boys’ imaginations are used throughout the film, often practically as they invent new ways of testing and keeping an eye on their maybe-faux-mother, but also literally in scenes that are revealed to actually be dreams. Normally the use of false-reality sequences in horror films feel like cheap scares, showing supernatural elements in order to trick us into thinking we understand what’s happening, only to be yanked back into the present and be just as confused as ever. But Fiala and Franz use these moments sparingly and add plausibility by making it so easy to believe children have vivid and scary dreams. The effective and limited use of music also gives a sense of realism that enhances the tension and blurs the line between what is real and what isn’t. Cinematographer Martin Gschlacht, shooting on 35-milimeter, frames the stoic modern house with its wide windows against the many outdoor scenes of the boys playing in yellow fields, jumping on drying mud, and winding through corn fields and tree-filled forests. The distinction clearly implying the serene safety of the outside versus the cold grey uncertainty of their mother’s home.

At all moments a deftly crafted mystery and with thoughtful scares and the sort of shocks that don’t feel extraneous, Goodnight Mommy is a must-see for anyone who appreciates sustained suspense, and who maybe doesn’t mind a trip to a masseuse after to get all that tension worked out. A repeat viewing feels necessary to watch the film with fresh eyes after the truth is revealed, and if mandatory repeat watching isn’t the mark of a good film, I don’t know what is.

Goodnight Mommy is currently playing in NY, LA, and Austin and will open in additional cities September 25, 2015. 

Whether or not you will enjoy Eden is contingent on whether you care to see an almost beat-by-beat retelling of Lord of the Flies. The only notable difference between the two stories is that the refugees in Eden are frightened adults instead of frightened children; and the cast isn’t entirely male. Now, while the film doesn’t bring anything particularly new or groundbreaking to the table, director Shyam Madiraju manages to keep high entertainment value with some truly surprising moments.

After competing in an international competition, a professional soccer team ventures back to the United States on the company plane. However, on the way home the plane crashes into the ocean, killing many of the passengers. Those who survive the initial contact find refuge on a nearby island, but with limited resources, they begin to worry that they won’t be able to escape the island before their inevitable deaths. Slim (Nate Parker), the good-hearted team captain, urges everyone to stay calm and work collectively. But Andreas (Ethan Peck) makes his intentions known that he plans on surviving at all costs. Before long, the survivors split into two groups, and tensions quickly rise to violent levels as the opposing sides struggle to coexist.

While many of the characters may as well be unnamed goons—one-note and completely interchangeable with one another—there are a few unexpected moments of gut-punching drama among the opposing leaders. Thanks to a pair of solid performances from Parker and Peck, becoming emotionally invested is easy. When rescue becomes less and less likely, the stakes are raised, and it becomes immediately clear that nobody is safe in this harsh environment. Genre clichés aren’t avoided here, but there’s just enough subversion to keep viewers on their toes. Early on, it seems pretty obvious which characters are going to make it out alive and which ones are going to suffer horrible deaths. But after the formation of some unforeseen alliances, death begins to strike from all angles, and the body count rises in surprising fashion.

An unexpected love triangle between Slim, Andreas, and Elena (Jessica Lowndes)—one of their coach’s daughters—is anything but romantic, and ventures into risky territory later in the film. Eden is truly at its best when it’s subverting expectations. The discovery of a former military occupation on the island provides some mystery to the film’s setting, but nothing of note ever really comes of it. There are no monsters or cannibal tribes occupying the seemingly deserted island. The only evil to be found is humanity at its absolute worst.

Eden is a straightforward, by-the-numbers survival tale, but it is never boring and consistently engaging. There’s some pretty questionable CGI throughout—with the airplane crash sequence looking far too cartoonish and glossy—but the practical and makeup effects are morbidly realistic. From severed limbs to sliced-up flesh, the film features plenty of brutality, and is quite grim and unforgiving.

As with most tales of human survival, Eden does attempt to comment on the barbaric nature of humankind’s vicious desire to outlive one another. In typical fashion, those who keep their humanity are rewarded, while those who lose it are punished. You’ve probably seen a dozen films with a similar message, because there are seemingly hundreds of them out there. Eden’s stance on the issue isn’t particularly profound or thought-provoking, but Madiraju and screenwriter Mark Mavrothalasitis are anything but pretentious with their approach. Refusing to insult the audience’s intelligence, the filmmakers avoid a preachy tone, which is heavily beneficial given the nature of the film. Eden rarely attempts to be anything other than a suspenseful popcorn flick, and on that level, it succeeds.

It’s been over a decade since Lucile Hadzihalilovic baffled people in the best way with her incredible and underseen debut, Innocence, but now she’s back to show off her incredibly singular style with Evolution. From the opening, Hadzihalilovic (aided by cinematographer Manu Dacosse) wastes no time showing how much her unique vision has been desperately missed. A series of underwater shots around the coral reef of the film’s isolated location (shot on the Canary Islands, it looks like another planet altogether) are a feast for the senses, and the sensuous visuals continue throughout. But unlike Innocence, where Hadzihalilovic followed young girls in a similarly enigmatic and potentially sinister location, Evolution switches the focus to young boys and brings the darkness to the forefront.

On the edge of the island, where the small village of white houses stands out next to the black sand on the beach, 10-year-old Nicolas (Max Brebant) discovers the dead body of a boy around his age at the bottom of the ocean. He tells his mother (Julie-Marie Parmentier) about it, but she dismisses him; and the next day Nicolas goes back to find the body no longer there. Even before the cover-up, Hadzihalilovic makes it clear that something seriously abnormal is going on. The only people on the island are other boys, and each of them has a “mother.” The mothers all dress in the same bland, brown dress; pull their hair back; and feed their children what looks like bowls of boiled gunk scraped up at the bottom of the sea. Nicolas, unlike the other boys around him, is growing increasingly aware that his situation might not be a safe one.

And that’s all before Nicolas and his friends are shipped off to a medical facility on the island, where nurses start conducting experiments on the boys. Going into the undefined horrors in store for Nicolas and his friends would ruin the surprises Hadzihalilovic has in store, which evoke names like Lynch and Cronenberg. But comparing Hadzihalilovic to other filmmakers feels somewhat unnecessary and more like a need to find something tangible when trying to describe her work. Hadzihalilovic simply doesn’t make films like anyone else, and if her narrative falters—largely because narrative takes a back seat for her—it’s made up for by a command of mood and atmosphere that’s unparalleled. This is Evolution’s greatest strength.

With Innocence, Hadzihalilovic played things extremely close to the chest, and with her follow-up she loosens her grip just a little. That doesn’t mean it won’t be hard to figure out what exactly is going on throughout Evolution, but it will certainly be easier to guess than her debut (also worth mentioning again since it’s remarkable: this is only her second feature). There are times where the film’s small hints of information lead to some of its most unforgettable images, like when Nicolas discovers what exactly the mothers do at night when they walk out to the beach. Other times, like when Nicolas befriends hospital nurse Stella (Roxane Duran), the film comes perilously close to introducing exposition and breaking its own spell. Thankfully it doesn’t get to that point, but there are times where Hadzihalilovic seems lost at sea when it comes to figuring out how to leave out vital breadcrumbs to her audience.

But as I said, the benefit of Evolution is that plot doesn’t really matter. This is a film about nailing down a tone that walks the line between dream and nightmare, teetering on either side throughout. And in that respect, Evolution succeeds. It’s by far one of, if not the best looking film of the year, with images that look like paintings come to life. The constant presence and role of water in the film (tied directly in with the protective, maternal relationships between the women and children on the island) make it easy to get submerged in the otherworldly sights and sounds. Whether it’s for good or bad reasons, Evolution is a film that will linger in the mind long after seeing it. I just hope it won’t be as long of a wait before Hadzihalilovic works again.

After co-writing Gravity with his father Alfonso, Jonas Cuaron has literally come down to Earth for Desierto, a survival thriller similar to Gravity except set on the border (and with a budget that was probably a fraction of his father’s film). But Desierto is first and foremost a genre film, and with a big international star in the lead it’s easy to categorize the film as “prestige grindhouse.” It’s a gritty attempt to take the hot-button issue of illegal immigration and transform it into a stalk and kill slasher on the border. The only problem is that Cuaron doesn’t have a single original idea, working with co-writer Mateo Garcia to wrap his film in the safety of conventions, thin characterizations and uninspired story beats. For a film about an unpredictable life or death scenario, Desierto plays it safe from frame one.

Moises (Gael Garcia Bernal) is in the back of a truck with over a dozen other undocumented workers traveling the desert to the U.S. The truck breaks down, and now everyone has to journey to the States on foot, a trip that should take over a day. At the same time, U.S. country boy Sam (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is out hunting rabbits with his dog Tracker and giving attitude to someone at border patrol who stops him. If the cowboy hat, pickup truck and country music blaring from his studio doesn’t give it away immediately, Sam really hates illegal immigrants (read: non-whites). And to make sure the flipside of this equation is just as simple and underdeveloped, Moises’ defending of a young female immigrant from her predatory helper quickly establishes him as the morally righteous good guy. Then, as these stories go, their paths cross, and Sam begins hunting down Moises with his dog and rifle.

At least Cuaron builds things up nicely in the first act before Sam begins shooting down one immigrant after another, utilizing the desert locale to show off some nice compositions (the opening feels like a direct lift of the opening shot from Carlos Reygadas’ Silent Light). But once the bullets start flying, Desierto amounts to watching Cuaron retrace the steps of far better films. It doesn’t come as a surprise that it takes little time for Sam to slaughter every immigrant in Moises’ company except for Moises himself, and that Sam’s aim seems to be perfect except when pointing his gun at the handsome, recognizable star. It also doesn’t come as a surprise that Cuaron seems to care little about any of the supporting cast except for a young, female immigrant who manages to survive alongside Moises (Note: I tried to find the actress’ name but no actors other than Bernal and Morgan appear to get proper credit in any of the film’s publicity, which all but says these actors are just hispanic cannon fodder). The surprising thing about Desierto is not that Cuaron has essentially made a slasher film on the U.S. border, it’s that the average slasher film is more suspenseful than this.

So with absolutely nothing subversive to bring to the table, and a mostly handheld style that does very little to use any stylistic flair to up the tension, the central chase in Desierto is really stuck in neutral, going through the motions while waiting for the next obstacle to come Moises’ way. The film is typically more dull than dumb, except for one offensive part when Cuaron takes a break to have Moises and his only surviving companion tell each other their life stories. It’s an attempt to add some character development to a film sorely lacking it, but none of it is really that necessary. Even if these characters didn’t have family in the States missing them or supportive parents, the fact is that no one deserves to have some crazed cowboy blow their head off with a rifle for trying to cross a border. The basic need to survive should resonate well enough with viewers; Cuaron’s insertion of these sob stories implies he thinks it’s a point that needs to be argued. And the last thing a film this rote needs is a condescending attitude.

Graphic novelist Emma (the always excellent Alison Pill) works in a sex doll factory by day while drawing a new story at night. The story she’s drawing is about Edward (Gael Garcia Bernal), a famous action movie director trying to make a serious art film. The film he’s making is about Michelle (Mariana Ximenes), a model and aspiring novelist who drops everything to fly to Brazil so she can finish her novel about a graphic novelist named Emma who works in a sex doll factory. Brazilian director Pedro Morelli takes this closed loop of a narrative and throws in as many stylistic quirks and format changes as he can, turning Zoom into a frantic piece of metafiction that feels like nothing more than a collection of half-baked ideas.

At least screenwriter Matt Hansen tries to do something interesting, and for a time Morelli’s slick direction and the strong cast keep things interesting. But the film’s attempts to comment on the creative process get drowned out by Morelli making sure everything stays busy, and gimmicks like making Edward’s story entirely animated (remember, he’s in a graphic novel) look neat but feel superfluous. Bernal’s charm makes Edward’s rather bland story about wounded masculinity passable but Ximenes winds up with the short straw here, as her story winds up being a little too accurate in its attempt to be a bad art film. Morelli’s energy and the strength of Pill’s storyline (by far the best of the three) help make the film go by quickly, although it never winds up breaking past its shiny surface. The finale, where the closed loop transforms into an ouroboros, is neat to watch unfold, but the film might have served itself better if that zaniness came sooner rather than later.

Seven years ago, Bruce McDonald surprised horror fans with his chamber piece Pontypool, which centered around a radio DJ learning about a zombie breakout happening during his broadcast in the middle of nowhere. It was an inventive and seriously impressive low-budget thriller, one that showed how much imagination can go a long way when it comes to establishing dread and tension. Now, McDonald returns to the genre with Hellions, a low-budget horror film set on Halloween in a small town. It would be unfair to expect Hellions to operate exactly like Pontypool, and McDonald seems intent on making sure he isn’t doing the same thing twice; if Pontypool was all about being low-key, Hellions dives headfirst into the world of fantasy and surrealism. But Hellions is the exact opposite in all the wrong ways: it’s stale, cheesy, amateurish, and an all-around mess—an example of what happens when a filmmaker doesn’t know how to work within their limits.

High schooler Dora (Chloe Rose) is the standard image of the rebellious teen: skipping class with her boyfriend, smoking, drinking, and planning to spend Halloween night partying hard. But a quick follow-up with her doctor (Rossif Sutherland) early in the day brings her some shocking news: she’s four weeks pregnant. Not knowing what to do, and learning it’s only a matter of time before the doctor has to legally inform her mother (Rachel Wilson), Dora decides to stay home for the evening while her mom and little brother go out for some trick-or-treating. Unfortunately, Dora’s planned night of moping around to some bad horror movies gets thrown out of whack when some kids wearing creepy masks begin showing up at her door. The kids’ actions quickly become more aggressive, until one of them decapitates Dora’s boyfriend and demands she give over her unborn baby. Much to Dora’s surprise, her day actually could get worse.

At this point, Hellions goes full-blown surreal and never comes back. Once the army of demon children show up at Dora’s door trying to break in, everything gets transported to some sort of parallel universe where the skies turn red (in order to achieve this look, McDonald shot the majority of Hellions in infrared), and Dora’s pregnancy starts accelerating at a rapid pace. An explanation for all the insanity eventually comes in the form of an exposition-spouting local cop (Robert Patrick), who explains that it’s all part of some demonic ritual to sacrifice a baby on Halloween. That sort of clunky, awkward attempt to fill in the details is just one of many issues with Pascal Trottier’s screenplay, which feels like a textbook definition of the word “lacking.” Despite Chloe Rose giving a capable and convincing performance as Dora, her character amounts to little more than a bloody, screaming horror heroine, and the lack of any characterization puts a severe damper on the rest of the film. Without giving any sense of how Dora might feel about her pregnancy, Hellions feels like a cheap attempt at shock by repeatedly harming children (granted, they’re demon children, but still) and a fetus.

But a lackluster script isn’t what really tanks Hellions; bad writing isn’t exactly a surprise when it comes to the horror genre. The big surprise here is just how awful the film looks. McDonald has been making films for a few decades now, and he’s shown how skillful he can be on a stylistic level in the past, but Hellions is packed with visuals that feel like they’re from an inexperienced straight-to-video director. The infrared look only calls attention to the cheap DV cameras used to shoot the film, along with the fact that most of the nighttime scenes were shot during the daytime. And the use of special effects, like CGI shots of a fetus or exploding pumpkins, are more laughable than anything. It’s a giant disappointment from a filmmaker who can certainly do better, and an even bigger disappointment considering his proficiency within the horror genre in the past. Given the infrared cinematography—which makes this look like an even cheaper version of Francis Ford Coppola’s Twixt—it might be best to just consider this a failed experiment and pretend it never happened.

Jack is a striking biopic that forays into the enigma of controversial criminal Jack Wunterberg whose case of the early ’90s went largely unresolved. In fact, sophomore director Elisabeth Scharang (In Another Lifetime) is so flexible and supplementary in her approach to telling the ghastly tale, that it feels like a mockery of the incident, or perhaps even a merciless exploitation of Jack. However, this is an effective approach, as the psychographic pieces are powerful and go the distance of novelty.

Jack is a killer. He is first convicted of murder in 1974 and sentenced to 15 years in prison. This initial murder is the launching point. From then on, the narrative coils between a few brash scenes in prison, many sexual encounters with women upon release, and triumphant times of success with the intellectual elite in Vienna. Jack becomes a writer, his typewriter is his saviour and words are his freedom. “Time is running… but my time stands still,” Jack narrates as he sits engulfed in the writing of his novel. Despite the public knowing of Jack’s earlier crime, they are clearly able to look beyond it and take the man as an artist devoid of circumstance. The revolving point for Jack’s story comes when prostitutes begin to go missing again in Vienna. Is Jack still a killer? “Once a murderer, always a murderer?” Jack asks his fellows in his feverish tone and his sunken cheekbones expressing a callous look.

Johannes Krish (Revanche) plays Jack with as much virtuosity as you’d expect from a psychopathic character. Although he is never labelled as a psychopath, Scharang is careful to raise more questions than she answers about the man. Bold colours, costumes, Austrian pop music (Naked Lunch mix the soundtrack), devilish performances, and candid material seek to match this film with the likes of other psycho-thrillers, such as the work of Nicolas Winding Refn (Bronson, Drive, Only God Forgives) and even the deftly affecting films of Alejandro González Iñárritu (21 Grams, Babel, Biutiful). The linchpin with all these films is in the distressing performances. And here, Krish is so volatile that we can never second-guess his actions and where the plot will lead him.

As gripping and haunting as sequences of the film may be, it isn’t without a fair share of laughs, most of which place the audience right along the mischief of Jack’s own rotten behaviour. His charm for the truth and poetry in all things can become attractive, which would explain his relentless womanizing qualities. An elderly architect falls deeply for Jack. He is boundless in expressing his desire for her and making her feel wanted, but he quickly becomes reproachable, as games turn sour with a severe disposition of rage. Jack’s feelings have been bottled since childhood—no surprise there—but he is adamant to find success by following his own path in life. In fact, Jack is so obstinate that he will become noted that he does indeed claim that title, hence the success of his writing. It is slightly ironic, but persistence often meets great reward.

This character study seems like familiar territory, Jake Gyllenhaal’s recent performance in Nightcrawler comes to mind. But Jack is a biopic that doesn’t just wish to track a narrative of one insane man, it’s far more interested with bigger questions and in actually hiding the facts (an interesting dichotomy considering much of the film was developed on factual evidence). There’s very little exposition in the film and things end up piecing together as it goes. There’s a beautiful Terrence Malick quality of well-poised shots of nature and wilderness, which makes a stirring mix with the precariously sadistic tone of the film. Human beings all warrant their shades of grey, and Scharang isn’t afraid to question the status quo.

On paper, Marcin Wrona’s Demon should be a cliché-ridden tale of a demonic possession and the effect it has on a young couple’s relationship. After all, that’s the template for a handful of genre films that are released every single year. But Wrona’s latest is not your typical possession story—it’s something entirely different.

Piotr (Italy Tiran) arrives in a small town in rural Poland to marry his fiancé, Żaneta (Agnieszka Zulewska), on her family’s homestead. Shortly before the wedding, the groom-to-be discovers skeletal remains in the family’s backyard. Despite initially brushing off the macabre discovery, Piotr begins to suspect something sinister is afoot when he sees flashes of a dead woman lurking around the wedding. As Piotr begins acting erratically, the guests believe at first to be epileptic attacks, but then are quickly diagnosed as the acts of a man possessed by a Jewish demon known as the dybbuk. As tensions grow, the wedding party attempts to save the groom from certain death while simultaneously preventing the entire ceremony from erupting into chaos.

Despite its inherently dark and supernatural elements, make no mistake about it; Demon is not a horror movie. To be perfectly honest, it’s a stretch to even label it as a psychological thriller. It’s a movie that is almost impossible to put it into a specific box because of its seemingly endless layers. For much of the film, Demon plays out like a traditional drama and then swiftly transitions into a pseudo-comedic tale of a seemingly cursed wedding. Even the dybbuk—the film’s sole villain—isn’t imposing and has the appearance of a lovely, albeit dead, young woman. Still, there are some legitimate horror aspects throughout, including a very on-the-nose homage to The Shining. But Demon is as much in line with My Big Fat Greek Wedding as it is with Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece.

There’s a distinct sense of humor on display, but the screenplay (which is co-written by Wrona and Pawel Maslona) doesn’t feature many setups or punch lines. Instead, the levity arrives through the guests’ confused, frustrated, and indifferent reactions to the absurdity that occurs once Piotr begins to see the dybbuk. The film’s most significant comedic relief comes in the form of a priest who desperately wants to leave the wedding, but constantly runs into roadblocks that prevent him from leaving the reception. Without a driver’s license, the priest is eventually forced to catch a ride home with an atheist doctor who has had one too many celebratory drinks. The entire sequence should feel completely out of place in a film like Demon, but it somehow manages to work.

Utilizing naturalistic performances, the acting is good across the board. As Piotr begins to crack under the pressure of the dybbuk’s presence, Tiran expresses paranoia through eerie physicality. While his reactions are chaotic and exhausting, they’re never over-the-top or silly. The real meat of the film comes from the family’s conflicting reactions to Piotr’s illness or possession, and the dramatic scenes of heated debate on the issue are finely acted and engaging.

Sadly, Demon doesn’t really go anywhere, and the end of the film leaves you asking if the destination was truly worth the strenuous journey. Given its subject matter and the atmospheric, haunting, and mildly creepy first act, it’s frustrating that there aren’t any significant scares or notable payoffs. Demon is unlikely to do for awkward Polish weddings what Jaws did for the ocean, but it’s the first truly unique take on the all-too-crowded possession sub-genre to come along in some time, and there’s something to be said for that.

With Green Room, Jeremy Saulnier has perfected the intensity he showed in brief glimpses with his previous film Blue Ruin. Whereas Ruin played out through a more slow-paced approach and focused on the vicious cycle of a long-lasting blood feud, Green Room goes full genre, putting characters in a situation that’s seemingly impossible to get out of while gleefully letting everything to go hell in a handbasket. It’s a thriller that knows exactly what it’s doing, raising the stakes to an unbearable level while subverting expectations associated with the genre. In terms of pure, raw intensity and entertainment, Green Room is fantastic, and confirms Saulnier as a filmmaker to be reckoned with.

As these sorts of stories go, things start off with a calm before the storm. Punk band The Ain’t Rights are touring with no money and apparently no gigs either; they can barely afford food and siphon gas in order to keep traveling to their next destination. After driving out of their way to perform for some guaranteed cash they learn that the show’s been cancelled, but they’re offered an alternate gig; performing at a neo-nazi bar in what looks like the middle of the woods. They accept, and despite a rocky performance, things go well. It isn’t until they’re about to leave that things go south, when band member Sam (Alia Shawkat) forgets her phone in the eponymous green room. When bandmate Pat (Anton Yelchin) goes back to grab it for her, he walks in to find the headline act standing over the dead body of a young girl. With Pat being witness to a crime, the neo-Nazi bar staff lock the band in the room while bar owner Darcy (Patrick Stewart) and his right-hand man Gabe (Macon Blair) figure out how to handle the situation.

Right away, Saulnier establishes that playing by his own rules. The band, who turn Pat into a de facto leader as they try to negotiate an escape with Darcy through the room’s locked door, aren’t stupid. They know what will happen to them, and the more time they spend waiting the more time their captors can strategize a way to take them out. This is where the film’s earlier section pays off, since Saulnier’s ability to write realistic characters makes it easy to relate to the band’s desperate, yet smart, attempts to get out alive. Saulnier realizes the importance of realism, and that making viewers relate to the characters only ups the anxiety to a nauseating degree.

And once the situation goes haywire, Saulnier doesn’t hesitate to get brutal (and boy, does it get brutal). Machetes, box cutters, rabid dogs, and plenty more get used in the various showdowns, and when people die they go out screaming. Saulnier’s decision to cast character actors like Yelchin and Shawkat in the band puts his protagonists on a level playing field, making it impossible to guess who might make it out alive by the end. One by one, Saulnier removes the safe havens of conventions from viewers, meaning every moment plays out with an unpredictability that the film thrives on.

That’s largely because Saulnier doubles down on the best aspect of Blue Ruin; the ability to let his characters make mistakes. While Pat and his bandmates try their best to outsmart their rivals, Saulnier constantly reminds viewers that these are people desperately trying to feel their way through a situation they have no earthly idea how to grasp. Clever attempts to trick Darcy’s foot soldiers play out in ways they couldn’t expect, and even if they do pay off it might come at the cost of someone’s life. Much like The Raid: Redemption, Green Room is a survival thriller that understands the importance of constantly establishing the stakes, raising them higher, and letting people enjoy watching characters try to get out of the increasingly small corner they’ve put themselves in. It’s like watching a spectacularly bloody fireworks show, but with the knowledge that one of those explosives could come flying in your direction at any time.

Brotherly bonds get quite the test in The Ardennes, a surprisingly tense and entertaining spin on a familiar tale from first-time director Robin Pront. Opening with a robbery gone wrong, Dave (Jeroen Perceval, who also co-wrote the film with Pront) leaves his brother Kenneth (Kevin Janssens) behind, taking off with Kenneth’s girlfriend Sylvie (Veerle Baetens). Kenneth refuses to rat on his brother and girlfriend, so he gets the maximum punishment. Cut to four years later, and Dave picks up Kenneth from prison after he serves his term. Kenneth is excited to get back into the swing of things, but Dave has been withholding two bombshells from him: Dave and Sylvie became a couple while Kenneth was in prison, and now they’re expecting a child. And since Kenneth is a huge mass of masculine fury with a short fuse, they’re concerned about how he’ll take the news.

The question of whether or not Kenneth will find out about his brother and Sylvie is the sort of old, clichéd material that feels worn out by now, and when Pront & Perceval’s script leans on this The Ardennes can start feeling awfully generic. But the screenplay makes up for its narrative shortcomings by having a strong and rich thematic core, with Dave and Sylvie trying to climb their way out from below the poverty line to live a standard life (“I just want to be dull,” Sylvie says at one point). Kenneth’s release from prison puts a wrench into their plans, and his menacing presence in their lives serves as a reminder of their selfish decision four years earlier, threatening to drag them back down to the place they’ve tried so hard to escape from.

Pront and director of photography Robrecht Heyvaert give the film a slick, grimy look that heightens the dramatic stakes, highlighting the poor living conditions and little opportunities for escape. Perceval and Janssens work great together as the two battling brothers, but Baetens—who people might recognize from her excellent turn in The Broken Circle Breakdown—is fantastic as Sylvie. An unexpected turn in the film’s final act that moves things to rural Belgium brings a touch of the eccentric and surreal that might prove divisive, but it all leads to a highly intense and brutal climax that’ll make sure people won’t forget about The Ardennes after they see it. The finale’s nihilism might turn some viewers off, but it sure as hell leaves a mark, and that counts for something.

A tug of war between great drama and schmaltzy pap, Lenny Abrahamson’s adaptation of Emma Donoghue’s novel Room comes perilously close to collapsing into a laughably maudlin film at times. Spending its first half entirely in the titular room (in actuality a shed), Ma (Brie Larson) and her 5-year-old son Jack (Jacob Tremblay) are being held hostage by a man they call Old Nick (Sean Bridgers); Old Nick kidnapped Ma seven years ago and has been using her as his sex slave this entire time. Jack, unaware that Old Nick is his dad (kidnapped for seven years with a five-year-old son, you do the math), has no concept of the outside world, having lived his entire life in his mother’s prison. Eventually Ma, thinking Jack is old enough to face the truth about their situation, starts devising an escape plan.

Note: minor spoilers follow

Room thankfully doesn’t stay in its one location the entire time, instead dealing with the struggles of Ma and Jack once they escape captivity. Larson, Tremblay and Joan Allen (playing Larson’s mother) all do terrific work; Larson excels at going from tough and resilient to psychologically shattered, Tremblay is absolutely convincing as a child facing the world for the first time, and Allen is remarkable as she tries to deal with both her daughter’s return and becoming a grandmother. But every time Room’s cast comes together to create a great moment Abrahamson, who directed the insufferably quirky Frank last year, finds another moment to screw things up. Twee sequences where Jack narrates things from his perspective make the film suddenly turn into “The Littlest Hostage,” and the final sequence is laughably bad, with a scene that feels like watching a PTSD version of Goodnight Moon. It’s an uneven picture that could have been much better, and that makes Room all the more frustrating.

While TIFF is known for its prestige and glamour, it’s also a really, really big festival (nearly 400 features and shorts are playing this year), and thankfully that means there’s room for a lot of fun, insane films. That’s where the Midnight Madness programme comes in. One movie screens every night of the festival at midnight in a packed, 1200+ seat theatre for the most rabid fans of genre films.

The man responsible for all the fun is Colin Geddes, who’s been running Midnight Madness since 1998. But in the last several years, Geddes has expanded his reach to the Vanguard programme, which describes itself as “provocative, sexy…possibly dangerous.” A few examples of films Geddes has helped unveil to the world through these two programmes should give you an idea of his influence and impeccable taste: Cabin Fever, Ong-Bak, Insidious, The Duke of Burgundy, The Raid: Redemption and many, many more.

As someone who got their start at TIFF through Midnight Madness—the first film I ever bought a ticket for was Martyrs, a choice Geddes tells me is like “baptism by fire”—I was more than excited to chat with him about some of the films playing in both programmes this year. Needless to say, any fans of genre films (or anyone looking to seriously expand their horizons) should try to check these films out. You can look at the line-ups for Midnight Madness and Vanguard HERE, along with everything else playing at TIFF this year.

Read on for my interview with Colin Geddes, where he details a handful of films from each programme, gives a glimpse into the behind the scenes of the festival, and tells me what he thinks will be the most talked about film at Midnight Madness this year.

The Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 10th to 20th in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and you can buy individual tickets for films at the festival starting September 6th. To learn more, visit the festival’s website HERE.

I know some people who want to check out Midnight Madness but are afraid of essentially picking a really extreme film. What would be a good film for people to kind of dip their toes into the water this year with Midnight Madness?

What we celebrate with Midnight Madness is that it’s just a wild, crazy, fun ride. The criteria for picking the films is very different from the other programmers because I’m looking for a kind of tone and content. This is the last film people are seeing during the day, so it’s my mission to wake them up. It’s not necessarily always about horror films. It’s about action, thriller, comedy…

I would say that the one that kind of represents the Midnight Madness experience the most might be Takashi Miike’s Yakuza Apocalypse, because it is just a gonzo brain-melter. Something different and crazy happens pretty much every five minutes. It’s a whole bunch of half-baked ideas happening in the film, but that’s kind of the fun of it. Takashi Miike is, in many respects, the godfather of the Midnight Madness programme. No other director has had as many films selected for Midnight Madness, and it looks like we’re actually going to have him here, something he hasn’t done since I think 2000. It’s gonna be nice to have him back.

Yakuza Apocalypse

And what would be a good film for someone who wants to get thrown in the deep end?

On the other end of the spectrum in Midnight Madness, if you want the baptism by fire, go hard or go home, there are two films. The first would be Baskin, which is a descent into hell from Turkey. I’m pretty proud that we have our first entry from Turkey in Midnight Madness this year. This one’s gonna have just as much of an effect on people as Martyrs potentially did. But the other one, which is also really intense but in a fun way, is Hardcore. It’s a Russian-American co-production, and it’s the first POV action film. I can safely say that it’s like the Blair Witch of action films.

Can you talk about the opening and closing films Green Room and The Final Girls? What made you choose them as bookends for the programme this year?

What I strive to do with Midnight Madness is to get underdog films as much as I can. I actually veer away from big studio films. They can be fun and all, but I’d rather showcase a film from Japan or Turkey, somewhere you’re probably not going to see [the film] with that much energy. But then, at the same time, in order to properly champion those films, the programme always benefits by a couple of what you call tentpole films. So, if a newspaper article writes about Patrick Stewart in Green Room, then they’re also going to write about Baskin or Southbound or one of the smaller films. It’s important to have those in the mix, but I’m very selective on what I do. I just felt Green Room was a really sharp, fun thriller.

And with Final Girls, when I do a closing film, it’s a little more tricky just because of the kind of pedigree of premiere status. And it’s harder sometimes to have a world premiere at the end of the festival because that’s when the bulk of the media and the industry have probably left, so it’s hard for me to do a premiere at the end. But when I saw Final Girls the premiere status had already been broken, and I realized “You know what? Closing night!” Thematically, Final Girls is an excellent fit for the final night, and it’s also nice to end the programme on a humourous high.

Green Room

Midnight Madness has established a lot of new filmmakers to audiences over the years. Do you have a particularly fond memory of a filmmaker you helped introduce through Midnight Madness?

I really take pride in being able to introduce audiences to Ong-Bak. Thai Cinema has had a rich history, but it’s a rich history which hasn’t really been known outside of its own country. And literally overnight we were able to introduce the world to the first Thai film star who became internationally recognized. Who knew from when we first screened Ong-Bak that, years later, Tony Jaa would be in a Fast & Furious film? And then repeating the same thing with The Raid: Redemption. I like to take pride that we probably brought the biggest audience anywhere in North America for an Indonesian film.

What can you tell me about Southbound? When you announced it, very little was known about the film.

Southbound is an anthology film, but as opposed to something like V/H/S which had an interlinking episode, in this film, the stories all interlock with one another. It’s kind of seamless, where one story ends and it moves into the beginning of the next story. It does have some of the directors who have done films for V/H/S including the collective Radio Silence and David Bruckner. It also has a female director, Roxanne Benjamin, who’s made a really fun segment. And a female director in Midnight Madness…Even within the guys of the anthology, I’m really proud to be able to do that. There aren’t a lot of female directors working in genre at the moment, but that’s slowly starting to change. To be able to help usher in a new voice into genre is really exciting.

I could ask about every film in the programme, but I’ll ask about one more: I’m really interested in the short film The Chickening, which I guess is the real opening film since it will play before Green Room.

[Laughs] The Chickening came to me from…I got a link from a good friend, but I didn’t take the link seriously. The e-mail sat in my inbox for a couple of weeks before I watched [it]. It’s kind of similar to if you have friends in bands. You’re kind of like “Ugh, here’s their new album, is it gonna be good or bad?” It’s the same with films. When I put The Chickening on my jaw dropped. It is one of the craziest, freakiest, fun things I’ve seen, and in many respects the less said about The Chickening the better. The Chickening is, I think, going to be one of the most talked about films in Midnight Madness, and it’s only 5 minutes long.

The Chickening

Moving on from Midnight Madness to Vanguard now, I feel like Vanguard is a really vital programme in a lot of ways. Aside from genre festivals, I don’t really see many major festivals around the world profiling the kind of in-between genre films that Vanguard shows off.

Yeah, that’s exactly it. In many ways, I can single you out as a poster child of how the TIFF experience goes. Midnight Madness is the gateway drug for people. That’s how it was for me. I stood in line for the first year of Midnight Madness, and after that, I started seeing more films within the festival. People can get kind of intimidated or scared off by art films or foreign films, but everyone can accept a horror film or an action film. But as the audience grows and matures, so do their tastes. And so I really feel that Vanguard is almost the older, cooler sister of Midnight Madness. These are where we can find films that intersect within genre and arthouse. It’s a fun programme to see the people who are taking it to heart. I used to be a Midnight Madness fan, and now I’m a Vanguard fan.

I did want to talk about what might be the most hyped up titles in Vanguard this year, which I’m referring to as TIFF’s power couple: Gaspar Noe’s Love and Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s Evolution.

Oh, I’m so glad you caught on to that! I mean Gaspar and Lucile are in many ways cinematic opposites. Whereas Gaspar deals with the extremities, Lucile deals with the intimacies. It’s quite fascinating. I mean Love, there’s not much to be said about Love: It’s a 3D porn film. Or, more appropriately, it’s a love story, and those sequences of physical love are in 3D.

But Evolution is a little bit more of a hard nut to crack because it’s a sublime, body horror, fairy tale mystery. There are no easy answers in this one, but it is beautiful, lush and so engaging. Come and get ready to dive into that film. The imagery is just going to wash over you and slowly get under your skin. When people come out of Evolution they’re going to be talking about it.

Evolution

There are some interesting U.S. indies in Vanguard this year like Missing Girl, which stars Robert Longstreet and Kevin Corrigan, and Oz Perkins’ February.

It’s great because Longstreet is the lead, and it’s so nice to finally see a film that he’s carrying. Missing Girl is a fun, quirky indie. Quirky also works within Vanguard. This is almost a Ghost World-esque thriller in a minor key. It’s got some great performances, and it’s got this likable character who you’re concerned about. It’s a really nice, small, controlled universe. 

And February is a kind of beautiful, sublime horror film. When I sat down and watched the film I wasn’t really sure where it was going, and then there’s a certain point where everything just clicked for me and I was along for the ride. It’s just kind of an awkward coming of age story that takes some very demonic twists.

When you’re programming films, does that moment you’re talking about where everything falls in place kind of entice you? Is that something you seek for when you’re watching things.

Yeah. Personally, for me, I like films where I don’t know where they’re going. I like going down a path that kind of twists and turns. Another example is Demon from Poland. That’s a film that I didn’t know much about. I tracked it down based on the name alone. And it was so rich and rewarding to see a film where I couldn’t predict what the outcome was. It’s also refreshing to see a tale from another part of the world. I’m at the whims of whatever the market gives me, but I try to do as many non-American films as I can. So to be able to discover and put a film from Poland in Vanguard makes me really happy.

Demon

Alex de la Iglesia was last seen in Midnight Madness with Witching and Bitching, and this year he’s in Vanguard with My Great Night. It looks a lot different from Witching and Bitching, but it still looks pretty wild.

It’s totally wild, yeah. This is a film that could have fit in Midnight Madness. There’s a definite madcap energy to it. It’s just about the filming of a New Year’s special in Spain and all the crazy people in the televised special. It’s like a long, drunk, crazy party. It’s as funny as Alex de la Iglesia’s other films. Diana Sanchez—the programmer who selected it—and I had a big talk about it. She was worried that the audience might not recognize some of the cultural references. I was like “No, this is totally going to work.” This is classic Alex, and anyone who’s in for this is totally in for this ride.

I think Midnight Madness and Vanguard have a unique quality compared to other programmes in the fest where you’re kind of the face of these programmes. Throughout the year, when you do this selection process for the programmes, how much of it is you and how much is more of a collaborative process with other people behind the scenes?

Midnight Madness is pretty much carte blanche for me, it’s all of my picks. But Vanguard is a collaborative process with the other programmers. I’ll see something, or they’ll see something, and we’ll meet or discuss whether or not we feel it might fit into Vanguard. A good example of this is Collective Invention from South Korea. I had watched it, and my selections were already full, so I immediately sent it over to our Asian programmer Giovanna Fulvi and said, “You have to see this.” It has the same kind of mad spark of genius we saw with some films at the beginning of the new wave of Korean cinema, like Save the Green Planet or The Foul King. It’s a perfect Vanguard film. She saw it and embraced it, and that’s how it ended up in Vanguard.

Finally, outside of the films in Midnight Madness and Vanguard, what is a film that you personally want to see badly?

High-Rise, Ben Wheatley’s film. I haven’t had a chance to see it. It’s in the Platform section. I’ve read the book, and when Wheatley was here for A Field in England he was telling me what he was going to be doing with the film. I’m so excited to see that one. Hopefully I’ll check it out before the festival. Otherwise I’m just gonna have to skip my duties and run and catch a screening while it’s on.

The allure of a dystopian-set film usually seems to lie in its many opportunities for action, cutthroat survival, zombies/talking monkeys/other evolutionary developments, and the always popular spectacle of seeing well-known cultural landmarks in ruin. I will admit that’s not why I keep coming back for them. I’m a junkie for relational dynamics in extreme duress and social psychology experimentation isn’t a career path I’m all that cut out for, so apocalyptic films it is.

Judging by its poster—which mostly consists of the faces of Chiwetel Ejiofor, Margot Robbie, and Chris Pine in blue-tinted, love-triangle infused expressions of seriousness–it’s easy not to pick up on the genre of Z For Zachariah. With nary an upturned Statue of Liberty, decaying zombie, or even a single action scene to speak of, it is actually post-apocalyptic. And while, yes, there is a love triangle at the center of the conflict, that these may just be the last three people on earth, that they are essentially strangers to one another, and that survival instincts turn people into manipulative creatures, all make for a nuanced psychological drama.

This is no Katniss, Peeta, Gale situation. Where Z For Zachariah excels is in its lack of outright drama. A lot like his 2012 film Compliance, Craig Zobel has fashioned another film where, when the credits roll, you realize you’d been holding your breath a great long while.

The film begins with Ann, played in an ambiguous state of early adulthood by Margot Robbie. Clad in a plastic suit with a portable oxygen tank, she searches for supplies and peruses books in the now dilapidated library. A few obligatory tableaus of dusty school rooms, empty grocery stores, etc. set the stage of the abandoned world Ann lives in. She makes her way home on a dirt road, removing her mask only once she’s gotten far enough away from the town. For whatever reason, the valley where her family farm, deep water well, and family church are all located is a safe place to breathe and live. And as a farm-raised girl, Ann has the know-how to stay alive despite being on her own.

Between Katniss and Ann, I’m starting to think the South may be the place to head in the case of impending worldwide destruction.

Ann’s contained and lonesome world expands considerably when she comes across a person in a hazmat suit. This scientist (Ejiofor) tests the air and plant life as Ann watches on in wonder. When he deems it safe, he rips off his suit, gulps the clean air and then rather over-exuberantly plunges into a nearby waterfall. Not realizing the water in this particular stream isn’t safe for jumping around in, Ann ends up having to nurse him back to health after he gets sick from radiation poisoning, taking him back to her farm to recoup.

Ann and the scientist named Loomis form a friendship, her demeanor one of sweet God-fearing Southerner, savvy in agricultural arts, he a science-fearing intrepid intellectual good at building. Once his strength returns he pitches in, helping Ann get farm equipment up and running and concocting a plan to utilize the waterfall to power the defunct generator. Ann is grateful, but overall more interested in there being another person alive in her world. Her family all left, apparently unsatisfied with sitting tight, feeling it their duty to search for survivors.

It doesn’t take long for Ann to try and use her unpracticed skills of seduction on Loomis. He admits to an attraction, but slows her down. After all they have forever to get to know one another uninterrupted, right? Enter an interruption. Covered in soot and a horrible haircut, Chris Pine’s Caleb appears. His familiarity with the area and good Christian manners immediately appeal to Ann’s sense of Southern hospitality. And with his charm, masculinity, and subtle passive aggression he becomes an instant threat to Loomis’s short-lived utopian fairytale.

Nissar Modi’s script, based on the novel by Robert C. O’Brien, doesn’t catapult into territorial insecurity or any form of violence, allowing a tentative and flimsy sort of trust to slowly build between the characters. Even as Loomis identifies that there is an obvious affinity forming between Ann and Caleb, his distrust lies within his inherent understanding of the way men behave in this new world. Ann has avoided some of the more psychologically disturbing aspects of what appears to be a nuclear holocaust, and Loomis has avoided telling her much of the outside world. When he tries to open up to her about this in order to prove his credulity toward Caleb, it only backfires by making her question what she knows of the man she thinks she loves.

Ejiofor plays Loomis’s descent from hopeful to threatened, capturing a primal and more subdued sort of survival mode. Survival against the possibility of threat in a world where one needs to be two steps ahead. As he and Caleb and Ann build the watermill that will ensure they survive the winter, Loomis and Caleb test each other, trying to decide what sort of threat the other is. Ann is relatively naive to the danger felt whenever Loomis and Caleb are onscreen together, but Robbie does a good job of conveying both Ann’s innocence to romantic entanglement and her skillful aptitude for survival. Caleb remains a mostly unexplored character, playing his role as the unknown quantity, the masked threat more frightening because of all he doesn’t say. Pine’s playful smile and knowing eyes perfectly convey the creepy seduction Caleb uses to woo Ann and to disarm Loomis.

The racial dynamics of the threesome isn’t overtly explored in any real depth, but Zobel does some diligence, such as a scene where Loomis gives Ann permission to “go be white people” together with Caleb. It’s funny, if not profound, and Ann’s innocent response of confusion doesn’t do much to continue the conversation. In the end the film sticks to themes around compatibility vs. attraction, religion vs. science, and the moral implications of following one’s instincts to circumvent a threat. The film’s climax is both tense and ambiguous, leaving a severe discomfort from its refusal to point to anything clear. But that’s another staple of any good dystopia: the paths aren’t clear and the compasses don’t work.

Anecdotally, I would venture to guess that one of the top three settings for horror movies is the woods. (Haunted houses and school settings would be the other two.) Some of the great films of the genre are set in the woods, including early slasher flick Friday the 13th, indie juggernaut The Blair Witch Project, Whedon wonder The Cabin in the Woods, and personal fave Sleepaway Camp. High school horror might be a metaphor for youth, and a haunted house might represent the violation of a home’s security, but the woods, despite their earthly serenity, are full of actual living critters, so no one can ever know which creature might be up to no good. That’s scary.  The latest horror film to explore the wooded unknown is the Belgian movie Cub, from director/co-writer Jonas Govaerts.

Cub tells the tale of a pack of cub scouts who, led by adults Peter (Stef Aerts) and Kris (Titus De Voogdt), embark on a weekend camping trip in a local forest. As adult scout leaders en route to a campout with young scouts are wont to do, these adults tell the scouts a scary story; this one is the story of Kai, a werewolf who allegedly lives in the woods near where they are camping and has a penchant for killing campers.

One scout who takes the Kai story to heart is Sam (Maurice Luijten), a somewhat troubled 12-year-old whose belief in Kai invites derision from others (especially the adults). This becomes a problem, however, when Sam finds a secret tree house. He also comes face to face with that tree house’s resident, a young, masked feral boy (Gill Eeckelaert) Sam believes to be Kai; no one believes Sam when he recounts his tale, and it’s only when the feral boy’s (supposed) parental guardian starts racking up a body count that things are taken a little more seriously.

It’s time to add another title to the “What Could Have Been” pile. Cub, despite its good intentions and a solid premise, fails to do the one thing a horror film should do: generate terror.

It starts well, with an opening that finds a girl being chased through the woods. Not only is the scene exciting, efficient, and very well shot (by cinematographer Nicolas Karakatsanis), it fully reveals the feral boy—who looks like a dirty kid in an angry Groot mask—in the first few seconds. It also reveals the diabolical nature of the traps the boy has set throughout the woods. It’s a great way to hook viewers in from the get-go.

This opening gambit is followed by a classic set-up: a group of people (kids, in this case) go carting off into the woods and once they get there, things go wrong. It’s here director Govaerts allows the discovery of evil to gradually unfold, which is reminiscent of early slasher films, where atmosphere and mood (and just enough plot) are allowed to breathe before things accelerate.

Govaerts, however, doesn’t really know how to accelerate the film into that high horror gear. What should be an enthralling sequence of events that alternate from suspenseful to terrifying and back again are instead a scattershot collection of moments separated by rhythmless downtime. And those moments are not frightening; they’re shocking at best and at worst, they’re sadistic incidents played out for nothing more than sadism’s sake.

Be shocked! as an adult brutally abuses a child in a grossly disproportionate response to an event. Be shocked! as a collection of children fall victim to a random act of violence. Be shocked! when a dog is specifically targeted to be the victim of egregious violence, not only in another grossly disproportionate act, but in an act that does nothing to advance the plot or develop a character.

None of this is to say shock is bad; it isn’t. Shock can be fun.  But shock is a horror film’s empty calories—the cheese puffs that might taste good in the moment but offer nothing in the way sustenance; being force-fed too many leaves little more than a tacky residue on the fingers.

The film is not without its positives, including the aforementioned open, some other bright spots including a clever title, considerable creativity in the those diabolical traps set in the woods, and Maurice Luijten as Sam, who calls to mind, at least in appearance, a young River Phoenix.

Unfortunately these things aren’t enough.  Flat characters, gaping plotholes, and inexplicable creative choices combine to be too much for Cub to pull itself out of the death spiral it takes once it peaks as it moves into the second act.

Cub is now available on DVD and Blu-ray.

It’s a kick to see a technically sound and visually disciplined director like Jon Watts apply his skills to a story as straightforward and undecorated as Cop Car. It’s about two ten-year-old boys—Harrison (Hays Wellford) and Travis (James Freedson-Jackson)—who find an abandoned police cruiser in a wide open field and decide to take it for a joy ride. It turns out to be the biggest mistake EVER, as the officer who left the car unattended (Kevin Bacon) did so under some very shady, very illegal circumstances. He needs his car back, and he doesn’t care how he gets it. Boyhood naiveté (“stupidity” may fit the bill a little better) has been a primary source of big trouble since the dawn of mankind, but the bloody mess these little fuckers fall into takes it to another level.

Watching Cop Car is a piece of cake (that is if you aren’t cursed with a weak stomach). It’s a taut, propulsive midnight flick that puts its characters through the ringer without getting a speck of dirt on the audience’s hands. Morality is a virtual non-factor in Watts’ world, and one-dimensional as his characters are, their motivations are identifiable. The boys, well, they see the world as their oyster, only that oyster is actually an aggravated crab ready to snip their little fingers off with its claws. They’re out of their depth—when we meet them they’ve run away from home, stomping through a quiet field, chomping on a Slim Jim they’ve decided they have to “ration” to survive the wilderness. The first thing they do when they happen upon the cop car, they throw a rock at it as if it were a sleeping giant and then deduce that they can’t flee the scene because their fingerprints are on the rock, which could incriminate them and land them in the slammer. Before you know it, the little hellions are speeding across the barren landscape and futzing around with the heavy armaments they find in the back seat.

Kevin Bacon holds up the other end of the story as his Sheriff Kretzer frantically searches for his car while simultaneously keeping his fellow boys in blue in the dark about the whole mishap. He’s a no-nonsense cowboy with a silver tongue and a big fat ego, and Bacon plays the role just right. His performance and everything else in the movie fit snugly into the genre movie category, but there’s a maturity and restraint to he and Watts’ work that keeps everything grounded. Cop Car‘s driven by a simple idea and doesn’t do much to make you think, but it’s a whole lot more artful than your typical midnight movie. A few unexpected plot developments keep the action spicy, and none more so than the surprise the boys find in Kretzer’s trunk.

Watts is all class when it comes to moving and placing his camera, photographing the sprawling landscapes beautifully while planting well thought-out bits of information in the frame when he needs to nudge the story forward or give us timeline clues (the chronology doubles back on itself early on to show the initial car theft from Kretzer’s perspective). The story’s as simple and old-school as it gets, which affords Watts a ton of elbow space to show off his command of the craft. It would have been nice, though, if he’d have been a little more exuberant in his style. When the story spirals out of control near the end and things get out-of-this-world intense, you’d think Watts would film the insanity with a bit of flair. Instead, he does his job, does it well, but doesn’t let loose when the script does.

There isn’t much to Cop Car, but that’s a good thing in this case. It’s a completely fulfilling entertainment experience, and while it won’t give you much to take home with you, it’ll make sure you have a good time while you’re in its company.

Guy Ritchie’s never had a problem with making his movies look good. His latest, retro spy-thriller reboot The Man From U.N.C.L.E., is arguably his slickest looking movie yet. He has trouble, though, when indulging in the pleasures of his eye-popping imagery just isn’t enough to sustain our interest. It’s a magic act: he’s showing us flashy, amazing things to distract us from the fact that his (recent) movies are, at their core, typical franchise cash grabs that don’t really mean or say anything interesting. But as long as he can keep us enthralled with his stylish visual tricks, who’s to say we can’t go home happy, buzzing with ignorant bliss?

As a late-summer action romp, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. is easy-peasy viewing. It’s fast, it’s fun, and it’s brimming with attitude. The television show on which it’s based ran from 1964-68 and starred Robert Vaughn as American secret operative Napoleon Solo, and David McCallum as Illya Kuryakin, his Soviet counterpart. It piggybacked on the burgeoning popularity of James Bond at the time, and while Ritchie’s movie does the same, it simultaneously—and more enthusiastically—capitalizes on the current trendiness of mod ’60s attitude and fashion brought on largely by the sucess of Mad Men.

Taking Vaughn’s place as Solo is Superman himself, Henry Cavill; filling in for McCallum is the beastly but dapper Armie Hammer. The movie opens in East Berlin, with our two heroes at odds. Solo recruits a car mechanic named Gaby (Ex Machina‘s Alicia Vikander) to aid the Americans in shutting down a Nazi crime ring with plans of nuclear world dominance. She’s a gifted mechanic, but what Solo’s interested in is her lineage: her uncle is affiliated with the bad guys, and her father’s a nuclear physicist who’s been captured by them. Before they can skedaddle and hop the Berlin wall to rejoin Solo’s extraction team, they’re intercepted by Kuryakin, who pursues them in a brisk, high-speed Road Runner chase through the moonlit Berlin streets.

Before long, Solo and Kuryakin are informed by their respective superiors that they’re to work together in bringing down the terrorists. They’re contrasting personalities make it hard for them to shed their adversarial attitudes, but Gaby does her best to ease the tension. Kuryakin’s a staunch patriot with a bad rage problem (he Hulks out from time to time), and Solo’s laid-back American arrogance goes against everything he and his people stand for.

The movie’s essentially a dick-measuring contest between the two, and idiotic as it may be, it’s a lot of fun to watch the strapping lads try to out-man each other by showing off their signature spy tricks. Cavill and Hammer are charismatic and look fantastic in the movie’s countless tailor-made European suits. As characters, Solo and Kuryakin are indefensibly shallow and one-dimensional, almost charicature-like, but in Ritchie’s world, it works. The actors aren’t so much embodying characters as they are exaggerated American and Soviet attitudes from the Cold War era. It’s not brilliantly written material, but the snappy banter is always good for a laugh. Though there’s only one English character of significance (played by Hugh Grant), Ritchie and co-writer Lionel Wigram still manage to infuse the proceedings with a generous helping of British cheekiness.

Vikander suffers the most from the surface-level writing. Her performance in Ex Machina was a revelation, and to see her reduced to a walking, talking plot device is sad. She’s given one moment: while staying in a hotel room with Kuryakin (they’re working undercover as an engaged couple), Gaby has too much to drink and starts dancing like, well, a drunk girl (a moment made all the more fun with the knowledge that Vikander is an accomplished ballerina). She loosens up the Russian’s stoic veneer by forcing him to join her in dance and then roughing him up a bit by wrestling him around the room, knocking over furniture. Alas, Ritchie is stingy with Gaby, only allowing her to let loose the one time.

The international vistas (most of the story plays out in Italy, which looks infuriatingly gorgeous) and vintage costumes and super-cool sunglasses more often than not outshine the actors. Ritchie glamorizes every piece of clothing we see, to the point where the movie stills look like they’re ripped from a fashion magazine rather than a movie. He’s confident in his visual style at this point in his career, and he knows how to make everyone and everything look great, even when zooming by the camera in a blur of color.

The plot is over-stuffed and hard to follow, but it’s never too distracting. Allegiances shift, unexpected wrenches get thrown into every plan, a romance between Gaby and Kuryakin is incessantly teased—it’s all standard espionage stuff. But you know what? It’s an entertaining movie, bottom line. Ritchie cleverly chops up and rearranges the timelines of certain events to raise questions and provide amusing revelations later: in one scene we see Gaby making a phone call to an off-screen mystery person; only later, when the information is most relevant, is it revealed who she was talking to. It’s not the most revolutionary device in the world, but the time-jumping keeps things fresh and active. Ritchie made some of the worst movies of his career with those Sherlock Holmes turd piles, but The Man From U.N.C.L.E. proves that he still knows how to wow us at the movies, even with the studio system breathing down his neck. Good on you, Mr. Ritchie—now, can you please just make another gangster flick? Pretty please?

Style will carry a film fairly far. It is, after all, a visual medium. In a genre film it’s especially useful in elevating the expected into more artistic territory. With a photographer-turned-director like first-timer Tyler Shields, style appears to be the home base and comfort zone from which his expression springs. Which makes for a unique looking film debut, but also drives home a very basic film lesson: style is swell, but story is everything. Final Girl (not to be at all confused with The Final Girls, a slasher film spoof slated for October) is Shields’ first film and while every frame exudes the talent of a man who understands lighting, costuming, coloring, and staging, he has managed to make a film that would have made an amazing photography show but is ultimately a frustratingly scarce horror film. The tale of a gorgeous young assassin facing off against four sadistic teenage boys to the death is an intriguing premise for a thriller, and yet Shields proves that premise and style can only take a film so far.

Set in some ambiguous time period where teenage boys own tuxedos and wear them to the local diner, and assassins in training wear cocktail dresses and heels, Final Girl doesn’t offer much in the way of backstory. Character motivation, it’s implied, is up to the viewers interpretation. So when the film opens with Wes Bentley interviewing a young girl and he succinctly mentions the death of his wife and child, that is apparently all the understanding we’re meant to have of why he’s chosen this newly orphaned girl, or who they are meant to work for, or how it is they choose “bad guys” to go after. It’s not much, not much at all. And in the following scenes where Veronica, played by a very blonde Abigail Breslin, goes through a series of training sessions with Wes Bentley’s William she doesn’t think to ask him all the questions that any normal viewer would have only ten minutes into the film.

While always inexplicably training in her fancy dresses and heels, Veronica is led through a series of very specific trainings: she has to exert enough energy in a choke hold to cause her mentor to pass out, she needs to rely less on her gun and more on her physical prowess, and she’s injected with an LSD-like cocktail so that she can simultaneously experience her worst fear (a fear that is sadly irrational for someone supposedly so badass) and experience what her enemy would be going through should she be able to drug him before facing off. It’s all very specific and very leading. Could it be she’ll need to do all these same things in the near future?

In an early scene we meet the four teenage boys who will soon be Veronica’s prey, led by The Hunger Games’s Alexander Ludwig. With nary an introduction its established quickly that these well-tailored gents have a bad habit of picking up pretty blondes, taking them to their hangout in the woods, and engaging in a game of cat and mouse with them before serially killing them. Why has William picked up on these boys’ hobby when local police haven’t seemed to do so? Especially with a noticeably high count of missing females in the area and a presumably easy trace back to the young men? No idea. But when Veronica shows up at the diner, blonde and appealing, the boys take the bait without question. Thus the tables turn and though she feigns fear at the beginning, Veronica uses her (very specific) skills to give the boys the revenge they deserve.

The rest of the film is split into four fight scenes between Veronica and each of the boys. Based on the limited screen time each guy has had, we know approximately one thing about each of them. Perhaps the writer, Adam Prince, thought it would be clever to define each of these young men by one particular trait, either playing with a weakness they have, or a sadistic trait they possess, but because it’s all laid out so clearly in the one shot each boy is given on their own, when those same traits are used against them by Veronica it’s hard to see much cleverness in it. Presumably, we can only work with what we’re given.

Each frame shrouded in a perfect vignette, a pool of light, and the brightest of colors popping amidst the darker backdrops, one gets the sensation after a while that they’ve seen this film before, but as a spread in Vogue. There’s no denying Shields’ photography talent, but if the point in photography is that the visual story told is succinct and intriguing, this method does not translate to a 90-minute film. Stills from the film will undoubtedly lure in viewers, but turn those perfectly staged frames into action and the energy is lost.

The dialog is pithy and unnatural, attempting to keep up that ambiguously old-timey vibe. The ending is expected but no point in searching for character arcs or discovering anything new about any of the characters that wasn’t fed to us within the film’s first 20 minutes. It’s hard to watch a talented cast look so beautiful and perform absolutely nothing of substance.

The cinematography and set design and lighting aside—since they were all performed by someone other than Shields—we can only hope that before his next foray into filmmaking Shields picks up a few tips on the basics: story and directing actors. Even in a genre as forgiving as thrillers where a little action can make up for a lot, there are necessary building blocks. Final Girl is the best-dressed girl at the party with absolutely nothing of interest to say.

You can’t say that Xavier Dolan is one for slowing down. The 25 year old director/writer/actor/editor/costume designer (only a few of his credits) has made five films since 2009. Tom at the Farm is his fourth, and it’s a departure for the young filmmaker. It’s the first time Dolan is working with someone else’s material, adapting Michel Marc Bouchard’s play of the same name. It’s also the first genre film for Dolan, and the results are surprisingly subdued compared to the visual bombast of Les Amours Imaginaires or Laurence Anyways. Dolan’s assuredness behind the camera is increasing with every film he makes, and while Tom at the Farm shows signs of growth there’s still a long way to go.

Dolan plays the eponymous Tom, a young man mourning the loss of his boyfriend Guy. Tom drives out to visit Guy’s estranged family for the funeral, opting to stay at their home. Guy’s mother Agathe (Lise Roy) is kind at first, a lonely widow looking like she’s just happy to see a new face around the house. On the other hand, Guy’s older brother Francis (Pierre-Yves Cardinal) poses a severe threat to Tom; Agathe has no idea of her deceased son’s orientation, and Francis aggressively terrorizes Tom into making sure he won’t tell her the truth. Tom, fearing for his life, agrees to go along with the lie, telling Agathe about Guy’s “girlfriend” Sarah.

Tom ends up staying much longer than anticipated at the farm, as the three characters form a sort of twisted co-dependent relationship with each other. Agathe and Francis see Tom as the closest thing to getting their dead family member back, while Tom is drawn to Francis because of the similarities to his dead lover. It’s a complex relationship that, expectedly, begins to fall apart.

Roy and Cardinal dominate Tom at the Farm as the mourning family. Roy plays Agathe as a gentle yet distraught mother, a woman filled with frustration and sadness as she tries to ignore the obvious elephant in the room. Francis is a truly menacing figure, the type of man whose isolated existence has transferred his sexuality into pure, masculine aggression. There are some not so subtle hints at Francis being closeted, and the sexual undercurrent in his interactions with Tom provide much of the film’s intrigue.

Tom, on the other hand, is lacking as a character. There’s little else to him aside from the “grieving boyfriend” descriptor, and as he succumbs to a sort of Stockholm syndrome at the farm, the plausibility of his decisions quickly dissolve, mostly because of the film’s failure to properly establish his motivations. This is where Tom at the Farm falters: its characters make decisions based less in rationality and more in getting where the writer wants them to be. It’s difficult to go along with the story when the gears in its machine are so easily exposed.

The manipulation extends beyond the page as well. Dolan, seemingly unable to resist himself, lets one visual quirk slip through: during the film’s more physical confrontations the aspect ratio slowly changes, starting at 1.85:1 and squeezing down to a narrow rectangle on the screen. It’s an inspired choice, but ultimately an ineffective one as it distracts from the intensity of the scene. As a story about one man’s emotionally-charged immersion into a bizarre, dangerous situation, Tom at the Farm calls too much attention to itself before it can pull viewers in.

Originally published on May 27th, 2014.

Those let down by Joel Edgerton‘s The Gift were probably expecting another movie entirely. While the movie is totally terrifying and will make you leap ten feet off of your seat at least once, this is not the trashy slasher flick the movie’s trailer and marketing would have you believe. It’s much better than that: The Gift is a stalker suspense-thriller with a wicked edge, a thematically rich tale of revenge and domination that engages the mind as it gives you the willies. In short, this movie is legit as hell; pay no mind to the misleading TV spots and ridiculous, punny movie posters.

Edgerton, an Australian screen vet who’s also done his share of screenwriting, makes his directorial debut with The Gift, and it goes swimmingly. In addition to writing and directing, he also stars as Gordo, a socially awkward nerd type who wears ill-fitting pedophile attire. He knows Simon (Jason Bateman) from high school. Simon and his wife Robyn (Rebecca Hall) have just moved back to Simon’s hometown of Los Angeles from Chicago, and Gordo recognizes him at a department store. After a quick bit of uncomfortable small-talk, the couple find they’ve made a new friend as Gordo starts visiting their new home periodically, dropping off little presents for them as housewarming gifts, often when they aren’t home.

Gordo’s infiltration of Simon and Robyn’s life is a slow burn; it starts off as innocuously as Gordo joining them for dinner, but gradually gets out of hand as he starts popping up unexpectedly and peering through their windows. Simon’s creeped out by Gordo’s clingy behavior (though he seems to enjoy making fun of him a little too much), and as his patience grows thin and tensions rise between the old “friends,” Robyn starts to suspect that there’s more to their history than Simon’s letting on. As she slowly uncovers the truth about their past, she begins to realize Simon might not be the man she thought he was. Maybe that’s exactly what Gordo wants. Maybe not.

Like I eluded to before, Edgerton’s film doesn’t rack up a high kill count or even spill much blood. But the danger’s still there; in this story, the truth is sharper than any blade, deadlier than any elaborate Jigsaw contraption. Edgerton keeps the story’s big secret from us for a good long while, and when we finally learn the truth, he blindsides us with an even more devastating blow that’ll make your head spin. Without spoiling too much, I will say that the film bears a strong comparison to Alexandra’s Project, a 2003 psychological thriller from Australia by Rolf de Heer. If you’ve never seen it, give it a go; then you’ll catch my drift.

To talk about the movie’s primary theme would actually spoil a lot, so I’ll just say that Edgerton takes age-old ideas of male ego and explores them elegantly and thoughtfully. Marital trust and honesty colors the story as well, and Bateman and Hall cover all of these themes in one magnificently conceived kitchen scene, a scene that elevates the entire picture above what I could have ever expected. Bateman is brilliantly cast as Simon, a character whose layers get peeled back scene by scene in a steady cascade into madness. Hall and Edgerton are great too, but Bateman gets to flex muscles we rarely get to see in his typical comedic roles, and it’s a pleasant surprise. He’s got an interesting mean streak as an actor that I don’t think has been explored quite as well as Edgerton does here.

The visuals and sound design work in concert to create nail-biting suspense that doesn’t give you room to breathe. The fact that it’s a stalker story actually has an interesting effect on our experience cinematically, as we’re always scanning the frame for Gordo, constantly aware of the characters’ surroundings and the little bumps in the night (and day) that may or may not signal an impending attack. There’s one cheap scare in the whole movie, and it’s delightful. You see it coming from a mile away, but the filmmaking is so good that I guarantee at least a handful of people in the theater will drop their popcorn. This is as solid a debut as a director could hope for, and I eagerly anticipate what Edgerton will cook up next.

A pair of distinct, green eyes make their way through an expanse of endless darkness, darting every which direction like a snake in the grass that can feel the hunger of the hawk soaring above. Only these eyes, this snake, is uncertain; they’re uncertain of whether they’re better off searching for something they’ll surely never find, or whether they should give in, be still, and fall victim to the forces on their tail.

Unwaveringly bleak to the point of being one of the most distressing cinematic experiences of the year, Catch Me Daddy follows the rapid downward spiral of a young runaway couple, the British-Pakistani Laila (Sameena Jabeen Ahmed, making her feature debut) and her Scottish-Caucasian boyfriend Aaron (Connor McCarron). They’re on the run from Laila’s family, an organized crime syndicate of which she longer wants anything to do with. She and Aaron take to the road and hide out in the isolation of the Yorkshire Moors, a hollow and barren landscape that director Daniel Wolfe and cinematographer Robbie Ryan display with a sense of haunting, poetic beauty.

This exhibition of spectacular visual poetry lurking beneath an incessant dreariness at the film’s core should come as no surprise to those familiar with the previous works of Wolfe and Ryan. Before delving into this project, Wolfe was already an award-winning music video director whose credits included The Shoes’ “Time to Dance,” featuring a murderous Jake Gyllenhaal, as well as the intensely cinematic video for Paolo Nutini’s “Iron Sky,” in which there are a number of aesthetic similarities to Catch Me Daddy.

In fact, one might want to check out the Nutini video prior to delving into Wolfe’s feature length directorial debut, as it almost works as a prologue to the film, at least with regard to the themes of cycles and addiction, which he seems to enjoy (and succeed in) tackling as a filmmaker. Ryan’s cinematographic credits, on the other hand, include the gorgeous films of Andrea Arnold (Fish Tank, Wuthering Heights) and Ken Loach (The Angels’ Share, Jimmy’s Hall), so it came as no surprise when Catch Me Daddy turned out to be just as wonderfully shot as his prior collaborations, especially with regard to his exemplary use of natural light.

The visuals and the atmosphere aren’t the only aspects of the film to be commended. The absorbing performances from the entire cast, a blend of professional and non-professional actors, lets the substance match the style, forcing viewers to become invested in the characters. It’s easy to care deeply about the well-being of Laila and Aaron, which is what makes it all the more difficult when the film descends into violent chaos following a psychedelic dance sequence (choreographed by musician FKA Twigs), acting as a turning point in what had, up until that point, been a relatively loose and eventless narrative.

Indeed, it isn’t until well into Catch Me Daddy’s second act that the film shifts from an exercise in kitchen sink realism to full-blown Shakespearian tragedy. The remainder of the film becomes a fast-paced, migratory journey through gloomy British landscapes reminiscent of the nearly wordless films of Philippe Grandrieux. Audience expectations, nonetheless, will be continuously subverted as a series of shocking scenes constitute the remainder Laila and Aaron’s hopeless odyssey. Then comes the film’s unforgettable final sequence, a culmination of everything that comes before it: an exploration of interpersonal relationships, familial ties and the notions of attachment & co-dependence. As Laila’s vivid, green eyes begin to dart around once more, searching for a non-existent escape route, the beak of the hawk is now only centimeters above, and our understanding of the film’s title takes on a new and frightening meaning.

Catch Me Daddy opens in theaters on August 7th, and will be available to rent on VOD on September 1st.

I’ve come to be spoiled on period dramas from Asia. Excellent films like The Last Tycoon (1910-1940 China), Masquerade (16th century Korea), War of the Arrows (17th century Korea), and The Gangster (1950s-1960s Bangkok) are great examples of movies made by filmmakers who understand the critical need to properly manage drama and action within the broader scope of history to produce a robust and high-quality film. Assassination looks to join those ranks, and it has two great things going for it out of the gate: director Choi Dong-hoon, whose previous outing was the slick and entertaining heist flick The Thieves, and star Gianna Jun, a high-profile Korean actress also of The Thieves as well as Blood: The Last Vampire.

Assassination is set in 1930s China, and during this time in history Korea is under Japanese rule; the Korean resistance hides from Japanese authorities in China’s northeast region, known as Manchuria. In an effort to thwart the Japanese, the provisional Korean government hatches a plan to assassinate two key Japanese authority figures. The government appoints Yem Sek-jin (Lee Jung-jae) to recruit three military prisoners—experts the Japanese government knows nothing about—to do the job: military school graduate Big Gun (Cho Jin-woong), explosives expert Duk-sam (Choi Deok-moon), and sniper Ahn Okyun (Gianna Jun).

Despite the players’ degree of expertise, the plan does not go smoothly. There is a traitor in the midst of the provisional government who tips off the Japanese leadership. They, in turn, hire freelance killer Hawaiian Pistol (Ha Jung-woo) and his partner (Oh Dal-soo) to eliminate the freedom-fighting trio and quash the resistance.

Based on that description alone, Assassination sounds reminiscent of many American films, particularly from the 1980s, where experts are assembled to carry out some critical mission (everything from Vietnam drama Uncommon Valor to sci-fi/actioner Predator springs to mind), and not everyone makes it back alive, and those that do are forever changed. This happens in Assassination, but where those other films might include some backstory or a little personal drama to add depth to the film, this one adds an inordinate amount of backstory, subplot, and supporting characters. This scope, with an expansive and critical period in history as the backdrop, is the film’s fatal problem.

Trouble begins in the opening scenes, both in structure and in theme. Structurally, the film opens in 1911 with something of a vague prologue, shifts to 1949 and the investigation of anti-national crimes, and then settles into its primary calendar point of 1933. This past/future/present construct sets a rocky tone for the film, making it difficult to know what, if any, time-shifts will occur again, and whether or not the film will play out in three different eras. Those issues (sort of) get resolved as time goes on, but to reveal more would require an explanation of actions and events so lengthy it would spoil a lot and undermine the purpose of actually watching the film.

Thematically, that vague prologue comes into greater focus as the film progresses, ultimately maturing into a predictable set-up for a plot twist that disintegrates into contrived melodrama—unrelated to the assassination plot—that sets up third-act (and even epilogue) events that attempt to be Shakespearean. And that’s only with one main character; this film has five other main characters, plus many smaller ones, and this, too, greatly hampers the film. Its players and their stories are sprawling to the point of being unwieldy, with a constant sense of urgency to wrap the current scene featuring some characters so as to get to the next scene featuring other characters. Choi, as screenwriter, sets himself up for directorial failure with a story that wants to say and do far too much, even within its lengthy 140-minute run time. All of this rushing makes for lackluster direction.

Such as it is, the film becomes an exercise in tolerating the story until it drives to the next action set-piece, which is where Choi’s directorial flair is put to better use. It also puts Jun to better use, whose considerable talent—both as an actress and as an action star—is mostly wasted here. She does well with her dramatic scenes and her action scenes are electrifying (including a great rooftop-to-ground descent that is NOT performed by a stunt double), but her scenes are too brief and too far between. The technical execution, particularly in the areas of costume design and set decoration, is the film’s other bright spot.  Interiors and exteriors are rich with era-appropriate detail, and the costumes adorning characters from all walks of life help set the right mood.

Assassination is ambitious, and it wants desperately to be one of those epics that becomes synonymous with the period in history it tries to portray. It has its moments, but not enough to give it that kind of gravitas. Unlike other Asian period dramas before it, this film neither focuses on a succinct enough subject within the broader context of history, nor does it rise to the challenge of the scope before it.

Even in this day and digital age of YouTube and GoPro, it’s still a small miracle to successfully actualize a fully fledged feature film. And it’s triple impressive when a single person takes on the bulk of the workload behind the camera. Shane Carruth is a perfect example of this trendy precedent. His achievement with Primer (2004), and the even more critically-acclaimed follow-up Upstream Color (2013), inspired a small army of young indie filmmakers to embrace a DIY approach and take the reigns on all the most crucial filmmaking elements—directing, writing, producing, shooting, and editing—all by themselves. Perry Blackshear is one such soldier. He’s done it all and more for his feature debut, tackling the sound design as well (an element almost as vital as directing in this particular case). The result is the mysteriously moody, and fantastically-titled, They Look Like People. But, when a finished film meanders with its story and characters as much as this one does, it becomes little more than an exercise in style.

The story follows Wyatt (MacLeod Andrews), a shaggy drifter who just came out of a long relationship and randomly bumps into childhood friend Christian (Evan Dumouchel). He, too, is feeling the effects of a broken relationship, still holding on to his ex-girlfriend’s things in his tiny New York apartment. The two instantly rekindle their boys-will-be-boys dynamic, but it’s not long before Wyatt’s current state of mind is exposed as downright certifiable: he gets mysterious calls in the middle of the night, and voices speak to him of monsters who look just like people infecting human minds and preparing to wage war. Wyatt is convinced this must be true because it coincides with the supremely creepy flashbacks he has of his ex-girlfriend (presumably), and various other oddities he finds in Christian’s house, not least of which is a “rape-y” basement (as one girl in the film calls it) that becomes Wyatt’s workshop in preparing for battle.

As a project resting almost entirely on the shoulders of its writer-director, They Look Like People is an accomplished little psychological thriller that, more than anything else, shows a megaton of promise for Blackshear. There is a very keen sense of cinematic mood-setting and an intricately layered use of sound (the buzzing of flies, the creaking of floorboards, etc.) that form a tangible atmosphere enticing enough to raise the hairs on the back of most horror fans’ necks. And, major credit must go to the director for never over-indulging with the scares, keeping the really meaty stuff firmly lodged in the audience member’s imagination, and creating an emotionally stirring climax that could’ve devolved into something much tackier were it in another genre director’s hands.

Once we delve into the story and the characters, however, a number of issues arise. We never find out much about either Wyatt or Christian to truly feel their suffering, the editing feels purposefully rushed, which at times works to great comedic effect (“you got a second?” cut to: back-shaving), but mostly creates a disingenuously choppy storyline, and the pacing stretches one’s attention spans to its nadir. There’s a moment in a whisper room that’s a great example of how a scene can detach from a film’s plot and float in the film’s atmosphere, signifying nothing and serving only to show an audience what a whisper room is. With that in mind, They Look Like People is tough to recommend as a viewing experience, but as an experiment in cinematic mood placement it fires on all cylinders. Most importantly, it should serve to propel its clearly talented writer-director-producer-DP-editor-sound designer onto much bigger and better things.

Sion Sono is one of my favourite directors working today, and I feel like I need to get that fact out of the way before delving into Tag, which happens to be one of six (!) Sono films coming out in 2015. Much like his fellow countryman and filmmaker Takashi Miike, Sono’s output is prolific and seemingly designed to defy all categories, whether it’s a four-hour epic about cults and upskirt photography (Love Exposure), a grim drama about the Fukushima nuclear disaster (The Land of Hope), a hip-hop gangster musical (Tokyo Tribe), or a gonzo ode to celluloid filmmaking (Why Don’t You Play in Hell?). The point is that, when it comes to Sono, it’s best to expect the unexpected. Tag is yet another insane, baffling whatsit from the cult filmmaker, and it’s amazingly just as strong, original, and entertaining as some of his strongest work.

Going into the plot is a fool’s errand, since the only sensical thing in Tag happens to be its three-part structure. The film opens with a school bus full of Japanese girls going on a trip, with the camera focusing on shy student Mitsuko (Reina Triendl) writing some poetry in her notebook. She drops her pen, and right when she bends down to pick it up a gust of wind slices the bus in half lengthwise, sending the upper torsos of everyone on the bus flying onto the street. Mitsuko survives thanks to bending down at just the right moment, but the gust of wind soon comes back to finish her off. She outruns it, winding up back in her hometown as all of her friends start heading to class for yet another school day. Was Mitsuko dreaming? Was the evil wind real?

Needless to say, things soon get crazier for Mitsuko, and revealing any more of the bloody, surreal highlights in Tag would be a disservice. This is the sort of film that’s ideal for the midnight screening crowd, with so many left turns and howlingly funny spurts of violence, it’ll be difficult not to embrace Sono’s gleeful insanity. And just when things couldn’t get stranger, Sono pulls a Buñuel and recasts his lead character with two other actresses. Mitsuko soon discovers that she’s turned into Keiko (Mariko Shinoda), a bride-to-be, and by the third act, Keiko transforms into marathon runner Izumi (Erina Mano). How these three women link together doesn’t really matter, although Sono does provide an answer by the end. Whether or not it’s a satisfactory answer is beside the point, since this is a film more about the bloody, fast-paced journey than the destination.

The only big problem with Tag that holds it back from being top-tier Sono is its lack of material. Sono wrote the screenplay himself (based off a novel by Yusuke Yamada, although Sono supposedly never read the source material until filming started), and despite running at a pretty lean 85 minutes, there’s a lot of padding. This is especially apparent in the first act, when most of Mitsuko’s scenes wind up being overlong, repetitive montages and/or chase scenes (but, to be fair, Tag pretty much is one long chase sequence). It’s a little concerning to see the film spinning its wheels so much, but Sono’s constant use of drones keep things crackling visually, and there’s always the promise of something new and crazy right around the corner. People can think whatever they want about Sono’s work, but no one can say he’s ever short on ingenuity.

But Tag isn’t just about its irrationally entertaining surface. It might be hard to track during the finale’s shift from action to horror to dystopian sci-fi, but there’s a clear message about claiming one’s own identity and freedom buried under all of the film’s eccentricities. That’s kind of expected from Sono, though, and expecting some sort of emotional resonance from a film that opens with dozens of high schoolers getting sliced in two might be asking for a little too much. Either way, I was thoroughly entertained by Tag and its hyperactive, hyper-violent story. The fact that Sono can still make something this baffling and enjoyable so many films into his career is kind of an achievement in itself.

Tag had its North American premiere on August 3rd at Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival. To find out more about the festival, visit http://www.fantasiafestival.com

One lazy afternoon when I was a kid, I came across Ranald MacDougall’s 1959 film The World, the Flesh and the Devil on UHF; I’ve been a fan of post-apocalyptic films ever since. I can’t speak to whatever deep-rooted psychological reasons fuel this in me, but what I find most interesting about the sub-genre is each filmmaker’s vision of what the future will look like after a global catastrophe, whether that disaster is natural or man-made. The latest glance at what a filmmaker thinks of the world’s bleak future can be found in Orion, from writer/director Asiel Norton.

David Arquette plays the Hunter, a man wandering alone in a desolate world known as The Rust. The shell of a large parking garage where he scavenges suggests civilization once thrived not that long ago (about a century, according to opening title cards), but the rat he is forced to trap and eat is the mascot for just how far that civilization has fallen. Meanwhile, Magus (Goran Kostic), a magician, helps deliver the baby of the Virgin (Lily Cole), but Magus disposes of the child in accordance with a ritual as documented in a large tome he possesses. The Virgin is then held captive by Magus. As the Hunter wanders, he comes across the home where Magus and the Virgin live, and the magician invites the Hunter in for a meal. While there, the Virgin desperately but discreetly asks the Hunter to help her escape. One thing Magus, the Virgin, and the Hunter all know is that there is something greater at work in the universe—a destiny for the Hunter they all will help fulfill.

Orion might take place in a post-apocalyptic world, but it isn’t a post-apocalyptic film; other than some hollowed-out buildings and some props, there is no real connection to life before the catastrophe. The story (such as it is) could have just as easily taken place in ancient Europe, and one gets the sense that the century-removed, post-apocalyptic backstory/setting was a creative decision driven by the sets available for filming. An approach of using what is available might embody the spirit of independent filmmaking, and the dilapidated buildings and other “civilization used to be here” settings all look terrific, but none of that matters if the storytelling doesn’t work.

Orion‘s storytelling doesn’t work; in fact, it’s threadbare. The construct is interesting enough: a man must fulfill his destiny, and part of that destiny is rescuing the damsel in distress whom he falls in love with. There’s a bad guy that is both the obstacle to saving the girl and yet part of the greater destiny, and there is a smaller character (the Fool, played by Maren Lord), who helps the hero. It has the potential for depth and density, but instead it is a shell of a story, like an outline sketched as a placeholder for something greater.

Norton is far more interested in reveling in his own directorial style than he is in creating anything substantive. He establishes his story, dolls it up with some mysticism, some title cards with Olde Tyme font, some nudity, and some Tarot-like storytelling device, then clings to an endless series of shaky, hand-held close-ups (close-ups that ultimately undermine any action taking place during the Hunter/Magnus battles) and long scenes of the Hunter pondering his destiny. These ponderous scenes, which include clips of what the Hunter is thinking (foretelling?) are replete with pseudo-mysterious dialogue (“He’s coming. He’s me.”) delivered via voiceover and incessantly repeated at various volume levels. It feels like watching a medieval perfume commercial.

Throw in some Christian symbolism to give the tale a little spiritual heft, and Norton wants you to think he’s made something deep. He hasn’t. He’s committed a live-action RPG to film and acted as its middling game master.

The cast is fine although mostly unchallenged by the material, with the exception of Kostic as Magus. The character, while not deep, has some scenery-chewing moments and Kostic delivers. When Norton allows the camera to occasionally open up, Lyn Moncrief’s cinematography is quite nice. It also bears repeating that that the sets are very good, along with the costumes.

Another facet of post-apocalyptic films that draws me to them is the opportunity to ponder if I could survive in that creator’s imagined realm. I like to think that in most cases I would, but if ever I were faced with the choice of dying during the apocalypse or living in Asiel Norton’s future, well, tell my family I love them.

Orion made its World Premiere on August 1st at Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival. To find out more about the festival, visit www.fantasiafestival.com

With his sophomore effort, writer-director Nadeem Soumah delivers 6 Ways to Die, a prime contender for worst film of the year. Full of poor acting, clumsy direction and an incredibly clichéd, needlessly convoluted script, the most value this film carries is that it can act as a guidebook on how not to make a movie. It’s the kind of disaster that would be funny to watch if it weren’t so infuriatingly self-serious and devoid of any real attempts to entertain. It’s a film so poorly realized that most any other crime film, no matter the quality, would look like a masterpiece in comparison.

The film follows the execution of a multi-layered, years in the making plan in which John Doe (Vinnie Jones) seeks revenge against Sonny ‘Sundown’ Garcia (Michael Rene Walton). Sonny was once a good friend and a partner in crime to John Doe before betraying him and ascending the ranks to become the top narcotics distributor for the Colombian cartels (a fact that is mentioned several times in the film to nauseating effect). John’s plan consists of killing Sonny by taking six things from him: his freedom, his love, his reputation, his most valued possession, all his money, and his life. In one of the most mind-numbingly bizarre stylistic choices the film has to offer, the revenge plot is shown in reverse beginning with Sonny’s murder at the hands of a contract killer (Chris Jai Alex) and each step concluding with a ‘One Week Earlier’ title card until the film has finally arrived at the beginning. And with each flashback, a new character is introduced as part of the revenge plot, and as a result, another actor gets a chance to embarrass themselves under the guidance of Soumah’s poor script and direction.

As bad as the acting is, it’s hard to really dissect it seeing as how basically every character in the film is played the exact same way. Outside of Sonny’s heavily underwritten wife Steph (Dominique Swain) and the annoying tech geek Hunter (Jeff Galfer), every character is a mostly silent, brooding, intense figure. And then there’s Vinnie Jones, who essentially acts as walking exposition and only appears to relay the story of betrayal for each new flashback (yes, all six of them) with bits of new information each time. None of these actors could say they’re above typical B-movie action films, yet somehow this still feels like an incredible waste of their time.

But it’s really Soumah who is at fault here. His script is full of unnecessary clichés, a pointlessly convoluted structure, and the stiffest characters assembled on screen this year. His direction is no better. It’s as if someone took Michael Mann and stripped him of all his vision. The film reeks of a desire to look “cool” and “slick,” but it comes across as a humorless parody of that style. The opening scene with Mike Jones (Tom Sizemore) is a perfect example of this, as Soumah consistently cuts from a close-up of Sizemore to several different angled close-ups of Sizemore back-to-back-to-back as if to breathe some intensity into the scene. It’s the type of scene that plays to amusing effect in something like Robert Rodriguez’s Machete, but here is delivered with such sincerity that it feels like a joke Soumah isn’t in on. The film also features a few glaring technical issues, like when a shootout includes a few poorly exposed or color-corrected shots. It’s jarring in the worst way.

And then to top it all off, 6 Ways to Die ends with one of the most asinine, ridiculous twists that I’d say needs to be seen if it weren’t for the torturous hour and 35 minutes preceding it. This twist is so laughable, it feels insulting. 6 Ways to Die is sure to go down as one of the worst films of the year if it’s not completely overlooked, although I think that might be for the best.

Watch enough independent films and it becomes hard to avoid looking for “the next one”—the film that, on the surface, might look like any another genre entry in a long list of low-budget genre entries, but manages to rocket above the rest with something else, something special. Some titles have already done it in 2015, like Appropriate Behavior (romantic comedy), Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter (drama), and Spring (horror). It’s time to add a thriller to the top shelf of indie standouts: Alex R. Johnson‘s transfixing slow-burner, Two Step.

James (Skyy Moore) is a kid with a rough life behind him and nothing all that promising ahead. Already orphaned (his parents died) and recently kicked out of college, the young man pays a visit to his grandmother, only to meet more tragedy: she is in mid-stroke when he arrives, after which she soon passes. Even with his late grandma’s house and a pretty decent inheritance to his name, James is young man with nothing to lose. The only person in his life is his grandma’s middle-aged neighbor, Dot (Beth Broderick).

Webb (James Landry Hébert) is a felon doing time when, via some little phone-scamming techniques from inside, he tricks an old man into believing he is his grandson and needs to send money to bail him out. Once out, Webb shows up at his girlfriend Amy’s (Ashley Spillers) house. He wants to see her, but he also wants his half of the take from a previous job. Amy wants no part of Webb and flees her own home the first chance she gets.

Desperate for his money, a lot of which he owes to shady liquor store owner Duane (Jason Douglas), Webb decides to scam a previous mark: James’ grandma. When she doesn’t answer or return his calls, he shows up at her house only to find James there. Surprise quickly turns violent and in minutes, James finds himself Webb’s captive. The situation only grows more desperate and more violent from there.

Two Step is not only “the next one,” it’s something else entirely. Writer/director Johnson is an incredibly disciplined storyteller and filmmaker. As the latter, he deconstructs the thriller genre and rebuilds it with a rich genuineness of events, surrounded by intricate layers of character and relationship development that a viewer usually doesn’t find in a home invasion film.

That genuineness is found mostly in what Johnson doesn’t do. He shows great restraint with events, actions, and characters (and their relationships), constantly avoiding what is so often the expected path in films like this, while at the same time maintaining every ounce of believability in every action, reaction, outcome, and ripple effect. The challenge for me is that to offer an example of any of these decisions would be giving a micro-spoiler—not of the entire film, of course, but of these special moments that consistently and refreshingly surprise.

Johnson also constructs clever parallels between the pair of trios led by James and Webb. Over the course of their respective lives, James has been a victim and Webb a victimizer (most especially in the moment their lives converge). The women in their lives are opposites as well. Webb’s Amy is young and troubled and wants nothing to do with him. James’ Dot is mature, wise, and—no matter the newness of their friendship—only wants to help James. Finally, James and Webb each have something of a patriarch in their lives. For Webb, it’s Duane, shady and full of nothing but cynicism. For James that duty falls on his grandma’s attorney Ray (Brady Coleman), an upholder, not a breaker, of the law. There are even peripheral masculine figures in the opposite camps—hired muscle (Johnny Snyder) for Duane and a cop with a crush on Dot (Barry Tubb).

These supporting characters may travel along this parallel road with James and Webb, but it’s them doing the traveling along a road  potholed with desperation. For James, it’s born out of stupidity—his criminal actions, his violent ways, his poor decisions. For James, it’s born out of helplessness—his parents dead, his grandma dead, himself a captive in his own home.

Ultimately, Johnson’s brilliance comes from writing a smart story within the framework of his chosen genre, not letting the genre—and the tired entries that came before—dictate how his story should proceed or how his characters should develop.

As a director, Johnson is just as good as he is a storyteller, if not better. Despite the story’s start (the first act is more slow than deliberate), there is real technical excellence in Johnson’s direction. It’s an incredibly crafted film. Every shot is effective, efficient, impactful, and captivating. Every shot is also a visual joy thanks to cinematographer Andrew Lillen, whose lensing is gorgeous, particularly what he does with natural sunlight. Rounding out this technical excellence is the acting, and almost everyone in this cast of character actors, newcomers, and unknowns delivers big, led by Hébert, who dazzles as he wields his reckless power over the helpless Moore.

A lot of movies can grab you by the lapels and give you a good shake to get your attention. Two Step isn’t that obvious. Instead, after staring you down, the film slowly glides around you, grips you tightly by the back of your neck, and demands your attention.

The plight of the teenage girl has been a staple for filmmakers for decades. Despite occasional attempts at changing the scenery in these films (the summer camp of 1980’s Little Darlings, the beauty pageant circuit of 1999’s Drop Dead Gorgeous, the rock-and-roll tour bus of 1982’s Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains), the most popular setting for the drama, angst, love, humor, chaos, friendship, and countless other things teen girls experience has been, and forever will be, school. The greatest teen girl films—films like 1988’s Heathers, 1995’s Clueless, and 2004’s Mean Girls, to name three—are all set in schools. This setting works so well because schools present natural opportunities for drama, angst, love, and other feelings. Throw in raging hormones, and you have near-endless narrative potential.

The latest entry that offers a learning institution as its backdrop, and features all the teenage girl backbiting of an American contemporary, comes from Japan: Mamoru Oshii’s Nowhere Girl (Tôkyô Mukokuseki Shôjo).

Ai (Nana Seino) is the misfit at her all-girl art school. She is so distant from her classmates, it’s difficult to tell if she suffers from crippling shyness or offensive aloofness, something that does her no favors in making friends. She is also far more talented than her classmates, which earns her special treatment by the school’s faculty. That special treatment includes allowing Ai to leave her classes to work on a secret art project.

This trio of factors—aloofness, talent, and preferential treatment—makes Ai the target of routine schoolgirl bullying. She rises above it, but as the harassment grows, and as one professor in particular shows his exhaustion with Ai’s special treatment, she begins to show signs she has other—more violent—talents.

If only her talents had manifested themselves earlier in the film. Even at a trim 85 minutes, Nowhere Girl is an arduous watch, suffocating under the director’s heavy-handed desire for soft, blanched, lingering shots set mostly to a placid piano score. This is the pace and tenor of the film’s first two acts. Scenes of an art class becomes watching paint dry, a character’s ponding becomes watching someone do nothing, and the uneventful becomes downright mundane. All set against the backdrop of too-soft whites and muted hues. It’s reminiscent of something from the eye of Nicolas Winding Refn, if Refn were forbidden from using color.

Visual style and pace aren’t the only problems that plague Nowhere Girl. The story, from Kentarô Yamagishi (original story) and Kei Yamamura (screenplay), is distinctly similar to another classic troubled teen-girl-centric film, 1976’s Carrie. Parallels are there (a misfit teen with mysterious abilities just can’t fit in and eventually snaps), and even the trailer suggests inspiration from the Brian De Palma film, but the story never congeals and thus is never propelled to the same places as Carrie. In fact, it’s never propelled anywhere. Dialogue, events, and character peculiarities in the first two acts are so vague, they confuse. It’s mostly made clear in the third act—to call it a “twist” is to dangle toes on the fringe of the literal meaning—but not due to deft storytelling tying it all together. Rather, there’s a sense of obligation that comes across in how it’s explained in (literally) the film’s final minutes. This movie gets the ending it wants, but it doesn’t earn that ending.

As for the meat of the third act, it is gloriously violent and the highlight of the film, with breathtaking fight choreography, intricate blocking and editing, and plenty of crimson to make a mess of all those bland settings. This is where Seino shines. While she is quite good as the despondent student in the film’s early stages, her physical presence is tremendous. The bloody fight sequence is a long one that incorporates gun, blade, and martial arts combat. The actress is up to the challenge, showing a physical deftness that rivals the skills of any modern-day action counterparts. It is highly stylized violence (in keeping with Asian action tradition), and it includes some of the best uses for human shields I’ve seen on film. Once the dust settles, it’s hard to believe the cute and quiet star is capable of packing such a punch, but pack it she does. Unfortunately, no other cast member is particularly memorable, which allows Seino to stand out all the more, but does nothing for the film overall.

Nowhere Girl is a victim of its own design. With a threadbare plot and no character development to speak of, Mamoru Oshii may have had little choice but to take the form-over-function approach. Sadly, instead of creating any sense of tension or atmosphere with his lingering lens, the director presents an exercise in tolerance for the viewer.

Nowhere Girl had its world premiere at Montreal’s Fantasia Film Festival on July 21st. To find out more about the festival, visit http://www.fantasiafestival.com

There’s a woman on a mission in Frank the Bastard. She’s on a quest carrying her back to her roots, back to a community she’s long forgotten about, and back to a childhood event she’s suppressed for years. Surprising discoveries and greedy conspirators line the path, but a genuine sense of intrigue is unfortunately absent.

The film sports the kind of run-of-the-mill mystery plot that could potentially be elevated by other factors. With an emphasis on atmosphere and a central McGuffin that is cleverly interwoven with the characters’ emotional development, one could easily get distracted from the dull narrative. However, the problem with Frank the Bastard is that its story just isn’t a particularly interesting one, despite its attempts to throw in some (stale) twists. Save for a small handful of expressive sequences, Frank the Bastard amounts to a film simply going through the motions.

Our protagonist is 33-year old Clair Defina (Rachel Miner). Recently divorced and suffering from a series of debilitating panic attacks, best friend Isolda (Shamika Cotton) coerces Clair to make the drive out of the city to an isolated region of Maine where she spent her early years. Clair hasn’t visited the little fishing town—a former hippie commune—since her mother’s tragic death in a mysterious house fire, and the bulk of her memories from that time remain frustratingly blocked. Upon arrival, the two women encounter a number of locals (both friendly and suspicious) and the mention of Clair’s family spurs a great deal of reminiscing. But something else is going on, as talk swirls around an enigmatic and crookedly composed childhood friend named Frank (Andy Comeau), and a wealthy nearby family looks to cover up the truth that Clair is desperately looking for.

The film’s first act provides plenty to chew on, dishing out soft-spoken hints about Frank as a complicated and possibly dangerous man. Every time someone speaks his name, there’s an aura of dread lingering over the sound of it. But then he shows up, suddenly and without warning, and as soon as he comes on the scene the intrigue invested in the character flatlines. Frank becomes just another supporting player, rather than the ticking time bomb of revelatory information and concealed aggression that he was seemingly positioned to be from the beginning. The film simply fails to have Frank live up to the image it creates of him, making all the hearsay about him ring hollow.

A similar dynamic of empty buildup and halfhearted follow-through falls across basic storytelling lines, comprising the bulk of Frank the Bastard’s problems. The surreal nature of Clair’s panic attacks and the notion of returning to a traumatic and isolated place suggests a couple different things. It gives the vibe of something deeply sinister and removed from society’s norms. The cinematography’s deceptively handsome twilight glow and shadowy high contrast only furthers the notion of wickedness being right around the corner. The image of a mixed up woman in a sleepy hamlet, either supernaturally affected or haunted by the demons of misdeeds, comes to mind (Think Martha Marcy May Marlene crossed with The Wicker Man or one of Stephen King’s many visions of small-town Maine), but the reality is not nearly as titillating. The teases of a horror/thriller narrative are present, but they clash violently with an underwhelming land-grab plot that skews closer to a generic crime drama. It also doesn’t help that the awkward tone, one that wobbles between leisurely and purposeful, undercuts the attempts at establishing a dark mystery element.

The focus on the out of place real estate plotline doesn’t have to be a problem in and of itself. Rather, it is the unimaginative modes of conveying information pertaining to that storyline that makes it even more tedious than it already is. The filmmakers’ idea of delivering plot points is unequivocally narrow, confined to clunky conversations in which characters discuss loads of newly revealed clues in a way that obviously stands in place of the screenwriter addressing the audience directly. These exposition dumps only increase in prevalence as the story begins to leave some of its character moments behind in favor of feverish amateur detective work.

The characters themselves are barely more interesting than the knowledge they express, usually falling into one of three camps: a devious “bad guy” type, a curious truth-seeker, or someone with answers. There’s very little gray area between these groups of characters, and the lack of nuance really hurts the small character studies going on in between the more procedural material.

The finale does a good job of recentering the focus on what matters most, organizing a confrontation that actually brings the plot strands together in a decently satisfying way, but it still misses the poignant note that the entire film is groping for. It’s a good effort, but it doesn’t make up for the film’s glaring flaws.

Frank the Bastard shows the promise of a writer-director with a good eye for visuals, but a reluctance to allow them to stand on their own. Brad Coley’s film never rings as “bad,” but it is at odds with itself in almost every way, and in the process of this struggle with itself, it loses sight of its emotional potential.

Taking its cues from the likes of Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby and Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation, Observance is yet another horror film to come out of Australia, where the genre seems to be having a resurgence as of late. But instead of going down the same classical and metaphorical route as recent Aussie horror triumph The Babadook, Observance prefers to keep its characters and viewers in the dark. There are some bad things rumbling around in the darkness throughout this film, although director/co-writer Joseph Sims-Dennett doesn’t really have much interest in enlightening anyone on what exactly those things are. That’s part of the danger of taking a low-key approach; play it right and people can stay terrified by what isn’t happening, but play it wrong and, well, nothing happens. Observance doesn’t land firmly on either side of those two possibilities. It lands somewhere around the middle, making it a frustrating experience as it delivers some unnerving jolts within a dull narrative.

Parker (Lindsay Farris) needs a lot of money. After a tragic incident leaves him with a broken marriage and a mountain of debt, Parker goes back into his old line of work as a private investigator. His first assignment has him observing a young woman named Tenneal (Stephanie King) in her apartment over several days, a job that sounds easy but gets progressively strange. Parker gets offered a significant amount of money to stay in an abandoned apartment across the street from Tenneal’s place, provided that he never leaves the building and contacts no one except for his superiors to report what’s happening. The apartment turns out to be a nasty, derelict place, with newspaper lining the walls and God knows what decomposing in every dark corner. Parker, thinking about the money, decides to deal with it and get the job done.

But hey, this is a horror movie, so where’s the fun in watching someone just stare at someone all day and night? It’s soon apparent that Parker should really pay more attention to the building he’s in than Tenneal across the street, because some seriously weird stuff starts happening around him. Sims-Dennett doesn’t really care to let anyone know what’s happening, but he really loves pointing out that whatever’s going on isn’t good, whether it’s slowly zooming in on a bloodstain on the apartment floor (courtesy of Tucker cutting his finger on a rusty nail) or showing Tucker’s increasingly deranged nightmares. There’s a small aura of mystery around whatever Tucker has inadvertently made himself a part of, but some hints dropped early on make it easy to get a sense of where things will end up (perhaps the biggest influence here is Ben Wheatley’s Kill List, a comparison that attentive viewers might quickly pick up on). That makes Observance turn into a waiting game.

One of the nice parts of that wait is how, on a technical level, Observance shines. Rodrigo Vidal-Dawson’s cinematography makes Parker’s temporary living space look perfectly unsettling, letting the empty space of the apartment dominate the frame. The sound design also does a good job sustaining the film’s uncomfortable tone, relying on loud bursts of noise and high frequency in a way that’s surprisingly not obnoxious. The cinematography and sound go a long way in making the film’s few outright horrific sequences land effectively, with one moment in particular providing a really nice fright.

The narrative, on the other hand, drops the ball. Sims-Dennett and co-writer Josh Zammit lean heavily on clichés, like the person who tries to warn the protagonist with vague, useless advice (“You don’t understand, it’s an offering!” someone says to Parker when he sees a dead rat, a line that doesn’t really help clear things up). And at a certain point, it’s hard to believe Parker would even bother staying in that place, especially when he starts vomiting black tar (for some reason, this doesn’t really faze Parker that much). Even worse is when the film switches perspectives from Parker to a different character at a pivotal moment, a choice that makes for a rather anticlimactic ending. Observance may fumble quite a bit when judging it in terms of its writing, but as a mood piece, it’s a far more effective film. Putting its clichés and reliance on withholding information for the sake of mystery aside, there are some undeniably creepy moments peppered throughout. That’s certainly worth something, especially within a genre where it’s rare to see that kind of strong handle on tone.

Observance had its world premiere at Montreal’s Fantasia Film Festival on July 19th. To find out more about the festival, visit www.fantasiafestival.com

In 1971, Stanford professor Philip Zimbardo began what was supposed to be a two-week experiment on the effects of a prison environment on both prisoners and guards. A group of male students, still hanging around during the summer break, volunteered to take part in the study for its guarantee of $15 dollars a day. Classrooms turned into prison cells, a hallway became the cafeteria, a broom closet acted as “The Hole,” and the volunteers split into two groups: prisoners and guards. Zimbardo had no idea how dangerous and unethical the experiment would turn out to be. Both sides almost immediately absorbed into the roles they were given, with the guards physically and psychologically abusing their prisoners. Zimbardo pulled the plug on the study six days in after the abuse—and his allowing of it—reached a breaking point. Zimbardo’s project, like Stanley Milgram’s studies on obeying authority figures (coincidentally receiving its own cinematic treatment this year as well), is now known one of the most infamous experiments on social psychology. The ethics of the experiment are dubious, but the outcome continues to remain a chilling reminder of how fragile our identities can be underneath the power of societal structures.

That kind of material begs for a film adaptation, and after nearly 45 years of false starts, Zimbardo’s experiment has finally made it to the big screen in The Stanford Prison Experiment. The plain, descriptive title reflects director Kyle Patrick Alvarez and screenwriter Tim Talbott’s approach to the material (adapted from Zimbardo’s 2007 book The Lucifer Effect); this is little more than a straight up re-enactment of the experiment itself. Billy Crudup plays Zimbardo, and aside from a moment with his girlfriend and former student Christina Maslach (Olivia Thirlby), the film’s focus is more procedural than personal. This choice makes perfect sense, and it’s not the first time someone has stubbornly stuck to the facts to make their point clear. Craig Zobel did the same thing with Compliance, a film that meticulously recreated an incident so preposterous it was difficult to believe it really happened. Zobel’s direction was stomach-churning by design, and it worked brilliantly. Alvarez does the same thing here, and while the results are certainly effective, they’re not as powerful.

That could be due to the fact that Alvarez has a bigger scale to work with, considering The Stanford Prison Experiment has an ensemble of around two dozen actors. Talbott’s screenplay winds up honing in on a few of the test subjects, including Ezra Miller & Tye Sheridan as the more rebellious prisoners in the group, and Michael Angarano playing a prison guard who fully embraces his ability to torment and abuse the inmates. The ensemble works together quite well, with most of them taking full opportunity of the brief moments they get to shine. Crudup turns out to be one of the weaker links since the attempts to sympathize with him fall flat as he allows the experiment to devolve more and more. Miller, Sheridan, and Angarano are all standouts, but the most impressive turn comes from Nelsan Ellis as Jesse Fletcher, a former prisoner hired on by Zimbardo to ensure the experiment’s authenticity. A sequence where Fletcher improvises a brutal takedown of one prisoner (Johnny Simmons) during a mock parole hearing is riveting to watch, as Fletcher begins relishing in his chance to play the part of those who oppressed him for so long.

In fact, the most compelling moments of The Stanford Prison Experiment occur between the observers and not the participants, with Zimbardo and his colleagues slowly realizing they’ve become a part of the study. But the ongoing turmoil in the mock prison is what primarily drives the film, and it’s fascinating to watch how quickly things spiral out of control. Alvarez doesn’t sustain the tension from the situation as each day passes, and much like the experiment itself it feels like the film starts to slip out of his hands once the two-hour runtime starts getting felt. By the time the climax hits—where Zimbardo finally reaches his breaking point—its impact doesn’t match the psychological degradation shown earlier.

But at least the lacking conclusion—including an awkward and misguided coda that has the cast re-enacting documentary footage—doesn’t take away from the power of what came before it. Alvarez does a terrific job at cranking up the tension over the first two acts, and at some points it’s easy to get immersed in the roleplaying going on, believing in the simulation because of the very real emotions going on within it. Jas Shelton’s excellent cinematography goes a long way in keeping the claustrophobic, oppressive mood going, mainly by shooting the tight, cramped and dull office settings with a wide Cinemascope ratio, a choice that makes every character look as trapped as they feel. The Stanford Prison Experiment’s procedural approach to Zimbardo’s now legendary study may only work up to a certain point, but even so it’s hard to deny how gripping this fact-based drama can get.