Film Notes part 3: dramas & thrillers

 

Film Notes part 3: drama & thrillers

 

Aside from ‘Casino Royale’ – which I love and consider one of the best in action he-man cinema – and earlier instalments, James Bond doesn’t do so much for me, but it seemed fully appropriate to complete Daniel Craig’s Bond arc in ‘No Time to Die’ with the finale explosion. I thought Craig was good, but the urge to give backstory and introduce children seemed an unnecessary and a bad fit for this particular action-fantasy.

 

A film like Teodora Mihai’s ‘La Civil’ was the kind of drama that shows up fantasy-action films for lacking the social consequences the crime scenarios riff on.

Park Chan-Wook’s ‘Decision to Leave’ played with thriller and noir conventions and dark romance. He’s a detective, she’s a murder suspect: they are attracted to one another and so he wants to keep investigating and she wants to be suspected. Structural play, mystery and a few twists keep this always fascinating; it’s elegant and, if it perhaps lacks a little of the visceral punch of some of Park’s other work, this is still beguiling and brilliantly rendered.

 

Jonas Govaerts’s ‘H4Z4RD’ came from the more lowlife end of crime fiction. Filmed totally from within a car, this is a fun and furious thriller that is perhaps ultimately not a quite as goofy as expected from the first half. One of those “One Bad Day” plots where the bad luck just piles on for our petty-crime adjacent protagonist. He and his car must take punishment upon humiliation until he learns his lesson (well, we can assume he does).

 

The formal fun and pounding soundtrack and some off-colour gags make this entertaining, a memorable entry in the lowlife farce sub genre.

 

In David Victori’s ‘Cross the Line’, mild-Mannered people-pleaser Dani (Mario Casas) has devoted his recent life to caring for his father, but now it’s time to move on and start anew. And he’s on the verge when he crosses paths with the kind of domineering good time girl that you know is going to be trouble. The film makes exceptional use of music as it goes from dad’s unremarkable dying room to neon nightmare as Dani finds that straying from his caution only gets him deeper and deeper into trouble and desperation.

 

Victori is obviously going for something more poignant here with the title (online translator says the original Spanish translate as “You will not Kill”?), but the fun is following how things, pretty realistically, spiral out of control, forcing increasingly desperate and extreme reactions. Like ‘Victoria’, there’s a sense of playing out in real-time across the city, the handheld camera staying close to the protagonist– in this case, across Barcelona. It won’t win any friends with portraying the threat as a wild side female, in film noir style or a nineties “yuppie peril” scenario, but Smit’s performance is compelling. However, it’s Casas’ portrayal of a man being altered for life by one night, the toll taken showing increasingly on his face, that really grounds the film. Perhaps the film ultimately overreaches for sadness rather than closure, but it’s a vivid and entertaining thriller with lots of panache.

 

Adam Mackay’s ‘Don’t Look Up’ had a pedigree cast and a satirical bent that was sharp enough to upset the right people with a certain criticism of the mainstream media’s shallowness and callousness. Perhaps I thought its targets were too obvious, but it captured a certain zeitgeist with its focus on the venality and egos of politicians and media and the narcissism of a tech-bro scuppering the survival of humanity. Applying a typically American Mainstream bright-and-breezy gloss and a little sophistication to politics – ref: ‘The Big Short’ – certainly helped reached a wide enough audience to outrage.

 

Joachim Trier’s ‘The Worst Person in the World’ was peppered with memorable moments (the flirtation at the party being a personal favourite), this is a superior character study of fickleness and the roaming intentions and disappointments that come with aging. Indecision about who you are and where you are going lingering long after you’ve grown up is a theme not widely pursued aside from the dominance of the Man Child in mainstream entertainment, so it’s nice to see it dealt with such a mature eye here.

Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s ‘Drive My Car’ suffered from taking a little overlong to reach its destination. The journey was beautiful, understated and immaculately crafted, but coming to the last act you may wonder if it will actually arrive anywhere. But it does, so all the beguiling incidentals aren’t left hanging. It’s a mature film about the lingering and open-endedness of grief and life, and knowing its destination, a second watch will no doubt be an even more fulfilling journey.

 

Jane Campion’s ‘The Power of the Dog’ had a slow burn that paid off if you were willing to pay attention. Of course, it had beautiful vistas, a certain understatement of performance and plotting and smouldering pace to keep you engaged. Ultimately, it achieved a chill that was hard to shake off and made it truly memorable.

Speaking of upsetting chillers: Justin Kurzel’s ‘Nitram’ scored high in its deceptively mater-of-fact rendering of the infamous Australian mass shooting. Between this and "Snowtown", Justin Kurzel proves again a master of the upsetting and grim, in capturing with empathy and a relentlessly clear eye on pending national trauma. With stunning performances by Caleb Landry Jones and Judie Davis, this again shows Kurzel's adeptness in fleshing out characters that commit monstrous atrocities with empathy but not endorsement (including ‘The True History of the Kelly Gang’).

 

In this portrayal of "Nitram" and the build-up to the 1996 Port Arthur massacre, the frightening observation is of someone that has no sense of the consequences of his actions, and of how dangerous he is. Although one can sympathise with his ineptitude with social skills and subsequent loneliness, this lack of self-awareness is terrifying. Although not quite as relentlessly bleak as ‘Snowtown’, and on top of its anti-gun polemic, the focus on issues of how to assimilate someone with problematic behaviour and mental health issues was uncomfortably central.

 

Philip Barantini’s ‘Boiling Point’ delivered one of the best portrayals of working life on screen, focusing on a single night’s shift in a restaurant. It’s focus on the overlap of detail, on the interplay of mini-dramas hardly aware of one another, struck a recognisable truth to anyone familiar with a busy workplace.  For this, it deployed a single take to capture how drama and conflict unfolds in real time, giving this aesthetic a purpose that surpassed its gimmick status (and I am a sucker for the choreography of the one-take).

Alternatively, on the less neo-realistic side, there was Mark Mylod's 'The Menu'. Although you will go in knowing the nature of the beast, there's enough unpredictability to keep you at the table and the sprinkling of social commentary adds a little substance. Mostly, it's an enjoyable enough Mad Chef tale.

 

Olmo Omerzu’s ‘Bird Atlas’ provided a droll family drama focused on a ruthless, selfish patriarch of a technology company. He is an irredeemable aging bully and, when taken seriously ill, one son seems to be making his move, the other is a quiet enabler, and the daughter is preoccupied with a new baby. The trouble starts when company millions go missing. Yes yes, a ‘Succession’ scenario, but less gaudy and acerbic and the characters aren’t wholly obnoxious. In fact, there’s a straightforward approach to mundane glass and vanilla set design that is akin to the drabness of soap operas. But there is a bright trip to a snowbound apartment, and one fantastic shot of a blue train going through a snow-white mountain route.

 

There’s weight when the unappealing Ivo – a stony Miroslav Donutil – momentarily turns into an unlikely anti-hero detective to pursue the mystery and money. Just when it verges on being too dry for its own good, to almost tedium tedium, there’s a touch of the fantastical when birds, via subtitles, start to give philosophical and business observations. And it’s a tale where no one gets what they want and one man’s loveless attitude leaves a trail of unhappiness. A moderate drama that occasionally hits real heights but might be an underachiever. But the Greek Chorus of birds is inspired.

 

Ben Parker’s ‘Burial’ was perhaps minor, but a decent World War II that I expected to be a vampire flick, maybe, for a moment, but isn't. Rather, it's a solid wartime drama set in a horror landscape - coffin, woods, shadow-monster and isolated taverns. The tone is suitably austere but not drab and desperate, the performances good, the action decent too if occasionally lost in the shadows.

 

But for the real wartime deal, there was Edward berger’s ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’. A German adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s phenomenal novel which whilst marking key moments deviates from the source is truer in spirit rather than detail. It is a truism that war films are often remarkable and thrilling in spectacle, admirable and awe-inspiring in technical achievement even as they depict the very worst human kind has to offer (‘Come and See’ is as beautiful as it is traumatic, for example), and this ‘All Quiet on the Western front’ is no different.

 

Its depiction of the trenches and the use of stunning aerial shots, for example, are cinematically transcendent even as they glide into the mud and corpses of the trenches and No Man’s land. It stays on the front and forfeits the tale of soldiers returning home and being dissatisfied, of no longer fitting in, so the final image of Paul finally finding peace is somewhat lessened. This is replaced with a focus on the subplot of the politics, of men trying to stop the war and of arrogant, warmongering higher-ups sacrificing young men for their own ego and jingoism, a theme true to the novel. However, Paul’s final intimate scuffle that pauses when both soldiers realise that they are really just the same in their fatigue and horror, which is at odds with the faceless slaughter on the battlefield, strikes a resonant chord.

 

Rightfully horrifying, pretty and brutal, nicely performed and often stunningly filmed, an outstanding achievement.

 

For something joyful, if troubled: Panah Panahi’s ‘Hit the Road’ is set against rugged Iranian terrain and powered by the non-stop energy of child actor Rayan Sarlak, this slightly mysterious family road movie seems minor and intimate but reaches deep. Superficially jubilant and bright, but there’s desperation and persecution beneath. Nevertheless, the family never the let the peril get in the way of family squabbles and age-old grievances, so there’s almost a farcical edge. It’s bright, fizzing with interplay and detail (starts with the kid drawing a keyboard on a leg cast), amusing (the encounter with the cyclist is a highlight) and not adverse to a little musical interlude to reach even further, achieving something bittersweet.

 

And Martin McDonagh’s ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’ was his most satisfying since his debut. Maybe verging a little ‘Father Ted’ at times, but mostly this is a picturesque exploration of the heartbreak that can enter male friendships and how those feelings manifest as bafflement, bitterness, resentment and violence. Oh, and self-destruction. The women know to get out when they can. Fine performances (is there no end to Barry Keoghan’s utterly mesmerising disturbing-disturbed-sympathetic oddballs?), sparse aesthetic, funny and increasingly dark and weighty.

Nope

Nope

Writer & Director – Jordan Peele

2022, USA-Japan

Stars – Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, Brandon Perea

On the Brain Rot podcast, director Mick Garris says “I think we’re in a really good place because diversity had become important to getting films made.”; and on the Evolution of Horror podcast, Tananarive Due says how she doesn’t think themes of the black experience can be shoved back in the horror box, post-‘Get Out’. ‘Get Out’ being a game-changing breakout hit that touched the nerve of race relations but did so through the lens of appropriation rather than red neck racism. It was smart, funny and recognisable in its “Don’t Go There!” narrative: it wasn’t difficult. Peele’s second film, ‘Us’, was more of a mess, going from home-invasion though spookhouse to conspiracy horror. Whereas ‘Get Out’ was admirable for its stripped-down precision, ‘Us’ was enjoyable for its anything-goes and everything-in gusto, even if it didn’t quite gel. And he’s good at this stuff: his Key & Peele sketch “White Zombies” is a favourite. In ‘Nope’, the social commentary concerning race is there, but it is arguably more contextual and cultural rather than the thematic engine. Diversity is finding interesting niches in the tropes of genre.

 

Just to mention that the trailers for ‘Nope’ were good at teasing without giving it all away (the ‘Us’ tailer was awful).  And ‘Nope’s slower, smouldering pace seems to have left many wanting, or lingering wondering if they enjoyed the film or not. Both Peele’s previous films had a key flaw in that the story stopped for exposition. ‘Nope’ doesn’t have that and is all the better for letting the audience put the information together. For example, it doesn’t quite spell out that the objects falling from the sky is non-digestible UFO shit, but we get the gag. It is the kind of conclusion you can imagine two pals coming to when just riffing and laughing over a nerdy beer/coffee. There’s the black comedy, not just when characters say the title of the movie. This also allows for an all-time Gothic classic image of a house being rained on by blood.

 

‘Nope’ has a lot of similar vivid imagery – Peele is good at that. The clouds. The range. The plastic horse and inflatables. The UFO swooping down. The carnage in the TV studio. Actually, the subplot with the rampaging Gordy the chimp is the part that takes up much centre-stage but doesn’t truly gel with the rest. This is surely meant state the themes of animal aggression, bland entertainment and Wild Things Can’t Be Tamed, but this doesn’t avoid the fact that this is a lot of flashback for a secondary character and plotline: Jupe (Steven Yeun and Jacob Kim). We already got the themes of blameless animals being exploited and potentially dangerous from the early scene of OJ Haywood supplying a film set with a horse, waiting for his extrovert sister to arrive. And Daniel Kaluuya’s wonderfully taciturn turn speaks volumes about the character’s solitary nature. For a film set on a ranch with a lot of Western genre nods, the horses sure get short shrift; mostly they’re just bait. But this Gordy chimp sequence is a real chiller and beautifully done, nevertheless. Peele is good at horror set-pieces.

 

There was and is a lot of fan theory surrounding 'Nope', but mostly it’s a monster movie, and it’s highly entertaining on that front. And like many monster movies, you’ll be left unsatisfied by stupid character behaviour just so the monster can do it’s thing (Just go inside? & Why sacrifice yourself for no good reason?). And would something of such a nature really be reliant on eye contact to feed? But just go with the flow. Its slower, more contemplative pace isn’t typical of mainstream monster films, and although it has ambitions above its genre station, it is lots more fun than perhaps its pensive tone implies. And for a film somewhat critical of exploitation in the aim of cursory entertainment, it offers a lot of Big Spectacle.

2021 Film review - Home screen

And…

 

Some of the films below might actually be more 2020, but I was only aware of them last year, so indulge me as I am sure there is some overlap, especially with the NetFlix/Prime titles. They’re kinda current anyhow.

 

What really struck me about Thomas Vinterberg’s excellent ‘Another Round’ is how it reserved judgement and showed alcohol being an enabler of confidence. This, just as much as apparently essential for a good time, was shown to be intrinsic to its addictive qualities. A group of teacher friends decide to become alcoholics by using the pretence of an experiment about alcohol consumption. This criticism of Danish drinking culture was like a needle slowly being pushed in. That it ended on a note of exuberance seemed to have left some thinking it was a feel-good conclusion, but that surely neglects all the subtleties planted throughout. After all, drinking is associated with good times and I didn’t find anything conclusive come the deceptive jubilation of the ending.

 

Emma Seligman’s ‘Shiva Baby’ had a crackling script and really tapped into that most stressful context: the official social gathering. Conflicts of the demands of tradition and generation rule: young people playing parts to get through the scrutiny of the older generation. A touch of farce underpins it all, as does the comedy of embarrassment, but its humour is wry and sly, its cultural observation empathetic. Best and contrarian of all, it’s scored like a horror film by Ariel Marx, playing up the anxieties of these occasions.

 

Jane Campion’s ‘The Power of the Dog’ was a slow burner, pretty to look at and full of set pieces that showed bullying without resorting to typical displays of violence. How it destroys confidence and starts resentment festering. Full of mind-games, innuendo, repression, and things left unspoken. Perhaps Johhny Greenwood’s often discordant score should have been a clue to the film’s insidiousness and long game. Armond White’s conclusion of the film and Jane Campion’s of homophobia is surely wrongheaded in that it neglects character agency and that their behaviour is borne from the environmental misogyny and repression. It also features two excellent performances by Benedict Cumberbatch and Kodi Smit-McPhee. 

 

J Blakeson’s ‘I Care a Lot’ was a bone fide provocation with the sheer amorality and immorality of its characters. But therein was a critic/condemnation not only of the system the capitalist characters exploit, but of how happy audiences are with the conmen struts in cinema. And Rosamund Pike plays her villainess with shallow charm and relish that asks, really, why would you root for her machinations? It was also to include the complicity and enablement in its target range.

 

Kitty Green’s excellent ‘The Assistant’ was another film with slow-burn and insidious designs. It told of just another workday of the assistant to a powerful executive, but was really a portrayal of the daily enablement and complicity in bullying, exploitation and abuse – and being overworked was the least of it. It was the muffled scream to ‘Promising Young Woman’s yell, although its commitment to its just-another-day agenda surely bored some. But that’s the point: its all-pervasive and the normalising of maltreatment.

 

Michael Sarnoski’s ‘Pig’ also contained an admonishment of the soul-destroying nature of work. The best scene, for me, was when Nicolas Cage quietly but thoroughly reminded a former employee of the dreams and ambition he had once had, the kind ground out of you. Mostly, it came as a great character piece and subversion of the typical revenge pic.

 

Xiaoshuai Wang’s ‘So Long, My Son’ was also a slow burn, focusing on the effects of China’s “One Child” policy and the lifelong effect of a loss of a child. But I wasn’t quite prepared for the realisation that over its three-hour runtime it had thoroughly sunk its claws into me, and that it achieved such an emotional effect on me that I found myself aggressively wishing for a happy ending. Which never happens (I go with the flow to see what’s to be said). It has a naturally cluttered look, increasingly affecting performances, a little tricky with its temporal play, but ultimately a very moving and reflective film.

 

Adam Mackay’s ‘Don’t Look Up’ was perhaps too cartoony as a satire to be properly upsetting or chilling, and it was preaching to the choir, but it still contained enough to upset snowflake Right-wingers. And anyway, accusing a political portrayal as “too cartoony” seems redundant in an era still suffering from Trumpism. Ultimately, it posits that current American MSM perniciousness and shallowness will be an extinction event. It would make an interesting double-bill with ‘The Pizzagate Masacare’.

 

In fact, although it came over as just another action flick, Ric Roman Waugh’s ‘Greenland’ probably proved a more upsetting end-of-the-world drama. Certainly, the separation of parents from kids was easily more emotionally worrying – it is the scene where they’re trying to get on the plane that stayed with me most. It proved surprisingly enjoyable and well-executed for your typical family-in-peril apocalypse.

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And now to dramas through a horror lens:

 

Of which Rose Glass’ ‘Saint Maud’ was a favourite. Another drama of female mental instability with great performances by Morfydd Clark and Jennifer Ehle. Dull English coastal towns played up for their dilapidated charm, with eeriness and tension on display. We know Maud’s trajectory will not be a good one, what with religious delusion taking hold in an attempt to control trauma, but how long it will take is another matter. And leading to an unforgettable and harrowing finale.

 

The underground favourite was Jonathan Cuartas’ ‘My Heart Can’t Beat Unless You Tell It To’. One of those films that puts vampire rules in downbeat, grubby neo-realist context. This time, the focus is on family dynamics and as the older siblings of a young, naive blood drinker turn serial killers to feed him. It’s emphasis is more on the gloom of sadness and loneliness than horror flourishes. With the title song providing all the lush emotional release the characters don't have, its dour tone, smart execution, editing, the excellent performances and enough twists make for a compelling domestic horror.

 

Pascual Sisto’s ‘John and the Hole’ was also interested in the horror of family dynamic, but in a way reminiscent of Yorgos Lanthimos. That meant that the family insisting on returning to normal was the open-ended chill. Unsettling drama (one of the key questions is how "horror" this will get) that is ultimately about the performance of family dynamics as 13-year-old John - a compelling and near-inscrutable creepy-sweet performance by Charlie Shotwell - tries to play out one of his offbeat questions: what would it be like if the family weren't around? Perhaps too ambiguous for its own good in the end, but fascinating and always intriguing. Horror is other people, when their oddness gets out of hand.

 

And back to the distressed and mental health of women:

 

Of course, there was ‘Promising Young Woman’ and ‘Lucky’ but the other favourite was Prano Bailey-Bond’s ‘Censor’. The premise was catnip for genre fans: a censor cracks up in the Eighties’ video nasty period. The certain British Eighties grubbiness is well represented and then homages to the genre take control. Hey: in the woods! It was a vivid example of horror homage: combining the genre's close affinity to trauma and nightmare logic and aligning the 80s "Video Nasty" censorship with delusion, denial and repression. Ratio changes, a touch of giallo and Niamh Algar's flinty central performance make this both smart and playful.

 

Falling short of hitting the mark in the same area were ‘Knocking’ and ‘The Strings’. And they both began with gorgeous beach shots: ‘Knocking’ was as gorgeously summery as ‘The Strings’ was gorgeously bleak.

 

Frida Kempff’s ‘Knocking’ had the promising premise of a woman recovering from a breakdown besieged by knocking in the apartment block where she is placed. Now, knocking is just frightening (I learnt this from Robert Wise’s ‘The Haunting’ when at a tender age), but the knocking here is distressing rather than frightening. Cecelia Milocco's committed, nuanced performance holds it all together, its exploration of a woman's fragile state being constantly under siege by real or imagined urgencies and the horror of being disbelieved rang true enough. Yet, despite its shorter run-time, it leaves its audience as much running in circles as the distressed protagonist, doesn't quite follow up on some points and - being so focused on her dilemma - the answer almost comes as an after-thought; or at least at her expense. Too much build-up and too little pay-off?

 

Ryan Glover’s ‘The Strings’ made knocking scary, but ultimately didn’t seem so interested in its horror feints. Certainly our protagonist didn’t seem to be so bothered, just inconvenienced by them maybe. Instead, there were plenty of nice scenes of her making music, which anyone making DIY tunes will relate to. There is a great soundtrack and presence by Teagan Johnston (the kind where any shonky acting doesn’t matter) but when the spooky stuff happens - and it takes a loooong time to kick off - it mostly comes to nothing as Catherine barely engages with the supernatural side of the narrative: there's a tendency to cut away from heightened moments to the everyday stuff with the impression that nothing really has any resonance. It has desolate prettiness and great DIY music moments but ultimately doesn't let the supernatural say anything about the character drama.

 

For male madness, there was Amber Sealey’s ‘No Man of God’, a drama based around FBI analyst Bill Hagmaier’s interviews with Ted Bundy. As Hagmaier, Elijah Woods initially seemed cast a little against type but provided a career best. As Bundy, Luke Kirby gave a convincing portrayal of a man whose charm has been much wrongly aggrandised. It was a solid drama that always kept the victims as foremost in consideration, with most of the drama coming from Bundy not coming clean. Not much glorification or exploitation here.

 

 

To fantastical horror:

                                                                                       

Alejandro Fadel’s ‘Murder Me, Monster’ was the first film I saw in 2020 (although it was 2019, I think?) and proved quite unforgettable. It’s slow burn and slightly offbeat approach to its tale of a possible monster fixed to the symmetry of nature was not presented in a usual fashion. It was more like ‘Once Upon a Time in Antonia’ than even your typical smouldering moody horror (e.g. ‘Sator’). Wilfully cryptic, but there was a monster and, boy, what a monster!

 

Brandon Cronenberg’s ‘Possessor’ was a total shocker and immediate favourite. As clinical as his father’s early work, but slick and confident, disturbing and highlighted with vivid violence and practical effects in a way that felt distinctly his own. Technology, terrible violence, big business conspiracy, identity crises, psychopathy, faltering identity and reality, slightly abstract and thoroughly visceral… Chilling and thrilling.

 

And surely few would argue that Jordan Graham’ ‘Sator’ was an impressive piece of work, handmade almost totally by himself over seven years. Here was a film that thoroughly exploited the “banging is scary” that I mentioned earlier. But there were moments where it reminded me as much of Tarkovsky as the cabin-in-the-woods genre. Built from his grandmother’s genuine belief in a supernatural entity watching over them, the mood and the frighteners are consummately executed, the mystery maintained and resulted in a superior horror mood piece.

Another small-scale winning horror was Damian McCarthy’s ‘Caveat’, which was full of eerie images and creepiness, unsettling and somewhere between Gothic and contemporary, supernatural and psychological horror. Definitely left an impression from the moment I started smiling at the genre delights of an amnesic protagonist and “didn’t I say it’s on an island?” and “didn’t I mention you’ll be chained up?” It’s darkly amusing when a protagonist doesn’t know he’s in a horror film.

 

But if you were looking for bonkers, trashy genre, then you couldn’t go too far wrong with Richard Shepard’s ‘The Perfection’, which started out in one place and then twisted and turned until it was unrecognisable as the same film by the end. It’s a film where you just go along for the ride and you soon stop saying “Wha…?” Not as artful as, say, ‘The Handmaiden’, but fun nonetheless.

 

Bryan Bertino’s ‘The Dark and the Wicked’ was slick enough, but a little lax in its internal logic. Similarly, Kimo Stanmboel’s ‘The Queen of Black Magic’ seemed to lack a magic ingredient that made the most of its setting and premise. And I also enjoyed Anthon Scott Burn’s ‘Come True’ less than others. It had atmosphere but it’s not often that ending won’t come as a source of frustration for me. These were films very much stronger when building up.

The simple genre pleasures of Corinna Faith’s ‘The Power’ were less disappointing, surely because I went in with lower expectations. A great location in the old hospital distinguishing it and a somewhat clunky feminist subtext (well, not so much sub) notwithstanding. Peter Thorwarth’s ‘Blood Red Sky’ was enjoyable enough but also felt like it should be that much better, hampered by angst and unnecessary flashbacks that got in the way of its vampires-on-a-plane premise.

 

But then there were thorough losers for me. Jason Howden’s ‘Guns Akimbo’ never left its look-at-me! adolescence into something self-aware and genuinely smart, which was a shame because I enjoyed Howden’s ‘Deathgasm’. Not nearly as egregious but also not-so-good was also Joe Carnahan’s ‘Boss level’, even if it had time-loops and video game action.

 

There was the Nicolas Cage twofer Sion Sono’s ‘Prisoners of the Ghostland’ and Kevin Lewis’ ‘Willy’s Wonderland’. ‘Ghostland’ was often just busy doing nothing and angsting when it should have been moving. ‘Wonderland’ wasn’t as much fun as it thought it was and seemed happy to coast on It’s Fucking Nicolas Cage! For his part, Cage’s happy embracing of the absurd was totally appropriate for these films, and it’s remarkable that he could go from this to ‘Pig’ without missing a beat. The difference being Cage the fanboy pop-phenomenon and Cage the actor.

 

Josh Ruben’s ‘Werewolves Within’, however, won me over. Its comedic tone initially didn’t click with me, being very much characters screeching at each other as if insisting on their funniness. But when it ultimately turned to be a tirade against the eponymous selfishness, I was fully on board. It’s a bit scrappy, but it has enough whodunnit?! playfulness, wit and self-awareness, and good intention that it does a good job of charming past its weaknesses. Not bad for a video game adaptation.

 

And another film that proved itself just by getting on with being happy with what it is, and also better than its title promised, was Michael Matthews’ 'Love and Monsters’. A likeable sad-sack lead in Dylan O’Brien, a romcom-horror premise – he sets out across the monster infested distance in search of a girl he fancies – and enough sense to let the monster element mitigate any romcom triteness, it was a charmer.

 

And in other otherworldly dilemmas, there was ‘Chaos Walking’, whose gimmick of thoughts bursting out loud constantly – for the men, at least – should have but didn’t sink it for me. Rather, it was a decent Western-style sci-fi of the Young Adult variety. Decent in that it was easy to watch, looked good and you can’t go far wrong With Tom Holland, Daisy Ridley and Mads Mikkelson. But despite the Heard Male Thoughts gimmick, although thwarting possible romantic interludes, the prodding at themes of machismo doesn’t do so more than superficially (I haven’t read the source book, Patrick Ness’ ‘The Knife of Never Letting Go’ but one provocative subplot seems to be that all the women were murdered because the men couldn’t bear their thoughts being overheard all the time).

 

Far more curious and impressive was Christopher Caldwell and Zeek Earl similarly Western-inclined ‘Prospect’ (this one was 2018). It turned that favoured low-budget location of a forest into an alien planet just by having bits floating in the atmosphere. This was not a film of big effects but was pretty and focused on the dilemma of a teenaged girl fending for herself when marooned in a world peppered by mercenary prospectors. Immersive and interested in story and atmosphere rather than dazzle.

 

Chino Moya’s ‘Undergods’ was also heavy on atmosphere, but this time we were in a futuristic-ish European Dystopia, the kind so washed out and beak that you’ll be inclined to remember it in black or white. It was a bundle of connecting stories about how shit life can be, but also intriguing tales of family and exploitation that had hints of fables about them. There was a sense that this was only a glimpse of this world, that this was the outskirts, and the fact that there was a desire to see more surely meant it hit many of its targets.

 

But when it came to fantasy, it was David Lowery’s ‘The Green Knight’ that proved a most wonderous interpretation of the genre, inhabiting a touch of everything. Introverted, yes, with a measured pace and agreeably down-to-earth with a sense there were real feelings and anxieties to these archetypes. Yet quite happy to do bigger flourishes with wandering battleground aftermaths and giants. Monsters. Talking animals. Pretty fantasia. Gothic shadows. Mystery. Thoroughly beguiling.

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Some Favourite Moments

 

Mads Mikelson dancing in ‘Another Round’

The opening pre-credits sequence of ‘The Empty Man’

The opening of ‘The Beta Test’

The restaurant scene in ‘Pig’

The horror score in ‘Shiva Baby’

The shock of ‘Possessor’

The emotional impact of ‘So Long, My Son’

Giants walking in ‘The Green Knight