I love that this movie starts with this crawl: During the 1980s over 70% of American adults believed in the existence of abusive Satanic Cults… Another 30% rationalized the lack of evidence due to government cover ups… The following is based on true unexplained events…”

With this burst of white on black type, The House of the Devil sets itself up as not just an 80s loving slasher, haunted house and satanic panic film. It reaches back to the occult film roots of the 70s, when every movie was supposedly based on a true story. This worrisome addition — it could have happened to someone you know — pushes this film past simple pastiche toward work of genius.

At some unnamed time in the 1980s, college student Samantha Hughes (Jocelin Donahue, who played the younger Barbara Hershey in Insidious Chapter 2, which is a meta bit of casting if I’ve ever seen one) wants to escape the college dorm she shares with her boorish roommate. A landlady (Dee Wallace in a great cameo that does as much to ground this film within its time as that title card open) says that she reminds her of her daughter, so she forgoes a security deposit, which gives hope to our struggling heroine.

A potential babysitting job for Mr. Ulman (Tom Noonan, who is always a welcome site) and his wife (Mary Woronov, who we love so much we made a Letterboxd list of her films). Samantha wants the job so bad that even after the first attempt at getting it falls through, her best friend Megan (Greta Gerwig, who would go on to write and direct Ladybird) tears down every other flyer, ensuring that she gets the job.

Things get weird. But hey — when the job pays $400 for just a few hours, weird is fine. Unbeknownst to Samantha, a mysterious stranger has already killed Megan and delivers a pizza that begins to warp her mind. There’s a great Walkman scene here that ends with a vase broken, the reveal that the original family in this house is dead and that all is not what it seems.

Then Samantha wakes up, bound and gagged inside a pentagram, whole the Ulmans and their son (the stranger who killed Megan and delivered the pizza) begin a ritual with their “mother” which involves forcing our heroine to drink blood from a goat’s skull. For a film that has crawled to this point, all hell quite literally breaks loose in a fervor of gore, flashes and quick cuts. It appears that our heroine has been picked to become the mother of the devil, but she has her own ideas of how to escape that fate.

The 16mm film look of this film — as well as the zooms within the frame — is a signifier that this film is of the decade — and the one proceeding it — that inspired it. It feels real, however, and not just a movie claiming to be Carpenter influenced. It lives and breathes and sounds of the time.

I haven’t liked much of director, writer and editor Ti West’s other films, but here, I feel like he captured eldritch energy in a bottle. There’s even a reference to the Patrick Dempsey film Loverboy, as the mysterious man asks if Samantha wants extra anchovies, the code that that film’s pizza shop used to indicate whether or not they should send one of their male escorts. Plus, the name of the Ulman’s is taken directly from the hotel manager in The Shining, a film that West has cited as an influence.

You can watch this movie with and without commentary by Joe Bob Briggs on Shudder.

Paul Andolina is back to share another movie with us. He’s always a welcome guest on our site. If you like his stuff, check out his site Wrestling with Film. 

I’ve written about my love for Russian cinema for the site before but it wasn’t always easy to get access to Russian movies. I’d have to search for them on the internet and hope there was an English DVD release or just lament the fact I’d never see the film. Thankfully Timur Bekmambetov directed Wanted (2008) and it was a big enough hit that him being attached to a project meant there was a good possibility we would see stuff he had a hand in. Such is the case with today’s film Black Lightning (2009). 

Originally Black Lightning was released on December 31, 2009  but we didn’t see it stateside until a year after it’s release in 2011. New Year’s Eve is as big as Christmas here in the United States and films that take place during the New Year are often big deals there. Many classic films center on the holiday. A large part of Black Lightning takes place during the New Year festivities.

Black Lightning also happens to be the first Russian film that could be classified as a superhero film. Comic books were not as big a medium as they were in the States during the Soviet Union’s existence, most comic exposure was through xeroxed copies of single issues, traded to folks who were interested in comic books. I’d like to imagine the writers of the film were fans of Spider-Man as I feel like the film has parallels to the stories told in those comics.

A trio of scientists, Perepelkin, Romantseva, and Elizarov created the nanocatalyst, a fuel converter that multiples energy output a million fold and put it inside a GAZ-21 Volga. The automobile was supposed to fly but its success was hidden by Perepelkin who was jealous of Elizarov and his relationship with Romantseva.

Many years later a shrewd businessman, Kuptsov is determined to drill beneath the city of Moscow for Diamonds. The drill isn’t powerful enough and he needs the nanocatalyst. It was hidden inside a laboratory. The laboratory is accidentally discovered by a group of construction workers who unearth the Volga and extract it to sell and share its profits. Dima is an ordinary college student who longs for a vehicle and on his birthday he is given an old Volga by his father. This Volga isn’t just an ordinary model though it is the exact one that Perepelkin, Romantseva, and Elizarov worked on so many years ago.

At first Dima is ashamed of the old vehicle and even arrives late to a lecture at his university because he ditches the car and attempts to ride the bus to class. He helps an old man onto the train and is forced to drive to college in the Volga anyway. The speaker is none other than Kupstov who asks the class if they would stop to help someone and risk being late to class. Everyone raises their hands to say they would. He then changes it up by saying how many would stop to help if he was offering 1 million rubles to anyone who didn’t. No one would help.

Dima asks for the million now if he doesn’t help someone next time and is given the money. He eventually gives it back and ask Kuptsov how he started from the bottom. He is told he started by delivering flowers. Dima gets a job delivering flowers and stumbles across the fact that Volga flies by coincidence when he slams on the breaks in a very near automobile collision with Kuptsov’s men. Kuptsov had sent men looking for the car after discovering the laboratory knowing that it had the nanocatalyst inside.

Dima tracks down the scientists who created the car and is given a manual on how to utilize its powers.

At first Dima just uses the car to deliver flowers super fast and make a lot of money but that all changes when a tragedy occurs and he loses his father to a mugger. Now realizing he can use his car’s abilities to help people, he is becoming a bit of a local hero, the local news and media begin calling the car Black Lightning

Kupstov gets the the scientists to start working on another nanocatlyst saying the government is restarting the program in an effort to help Black Lightning and need the nanocatalyst to fuel a Mercedes but this is a lie. Kupstov will stop at nothing to have the nanocatalyst so he can retrieve the diamonds beneath Moscow.

Throughout the movie Dima is also trying to woo his classmate, Nastaya, who is being pursued by another of Dima’s classmates, Max. Max is a socialite and is able to pursue Nastaya using his social status and good looks.

This movie is good. It was fun being able to see a Russian take on the coming of age super hero trope that was slowly but surely consuming us all stateside. I really think that had this film come out about 6 years later it would have been given the remake treatment. I was drawn to this movie not only because of Timur Bekmambetov had previously directed Night Watch and Day Watch which were my introductions to Russian film but because I was hungry to track down anything Russian to watch.

I am not the biggest fan of superhero films but I have watched most that have come out through the years. If you are a fan of superhero flicks, I think you will love this movie. It may not bring a lot of new concepts to super hero films and uses many tried and true tropes but it is a fun movie that is stunning to look at.

I’d also like to point out that the directors of this film also worked on Night Watch and Day Watch and used some of the actors from those films in this one. Valeriy Zolutkin plays Perepelkin and Kuptsov is played by Viktor Verzhbitskiy. Valeriy is also joined by his costar from Charodei, Yekatrina Vasilyeva, who plays Romantseva.

From the first scene in this film, a journey across the world with propaganda messages across familiar landmarks and a gun battle that feels like a First Person Shooter, Gamer feels way more dated than a movie that came out nine years ago.

Gamer is a world of what the late 90’s and early 2000’s saw as our future: blips, ultraviolence, video games, nu-metal and reality TV. I hate to say that for the most part, it’s gotten a lot of it correct.

In 2034, Ken Castle (Michael C. Hall, Dexter) invents self-replicating technology that replaces brain tissue, allowing people to control one another and see through their eyes. Called Nanex, Castle uses this technology to create Society, a virtual life game ala Second Life (remember that?). His next idea is Slayers, a game that allows people to control prisoners on death row as they battle in a gladiator arena. Any Slayer that survives the game thirty times gets their freedom. But that’s never happened.

John “Kable” Tillman (Gerard Butler, 300) is the most popular Slayer there is. He’s made the record for survival — 27 matches — all controlled by Simon (Logan Lerman, The Perks of Being a Wallflower), a rich kid and superstar gamer.

Meanwhile, Humanz (they are from the streets, as the z will tell you), an anti-Slayers organization, hacks the Gina Parker Smith (Kyra Sedgwick, Singles, Hearts and Souls) Show when Castle makes an appearance. Their voice comes from Brother, played by Ludacris. Remember when I told you this movie was firmly of its time?

Castle is more concerned with the fact that Kable might win Slayers, so he brings in a new player, Hackman (Terry Crews, The Expendables), a psychotic inmate who is not controlled by a player and who suffers no lag time.

There’s also a guy named Freek (John Leguizamo, Spawn) who befriends Kable. And oh yeah, Kable’s wife Nika (Amber Valetta, What Lies Beneath) is a Society avatar who is rich from being part of the game but can’t get their daughter, Delia, back.

Holy shit, the Society game. It’s every late 1990’s teenage daydream on crack and filtered through pure scum and not in a good, fun Eurohorror way, either. There are characters like Vaginablender and mostly players either have sex or rollerblade or rollerblade while having sex.

There’s a horrible scene here where Simon talks to his female fans, including Stikkimuffin, his sister SISSYPUSS, a girl with a tongue that’s been pierced 25 times or so and two British twins named Kumdumpstaz. It looks like it was filmed inside a bottle of Mountain Dew and then someone jacked off all over it.

Meanwhile, the Humanz contact Kable and Simon, warning them that there’s no escape. Instead, they modify Kable to control himself again. Simon is labeled a cheater, has all of his assets frozen and the FBI investigates him (Keith David shows up!).

Kable heads to the Humanz’ HQ, but he refuses to be part of the fight. Instead, he finds and rescues his wife before meeting up with the talk show host — who is really helping the Humanz. Once his nanites are deactivated, Kable remembers that he was tested on while in the military and Castle mentally controlled him, forcing him to kill his best friend.

Of course, the main bad guy in the movie was the person who stole Kastle’s daughter.

Of course, he goes to get her back.

Of course, Castle has already killed all of the Humanz.

Castle reveals that he has a brain that is 90% nanites and thanks to an airborne virus, he’ll soon control the whole country. Hackman then attacks, but Kable kills him quickly. But Castle stops our hero, as his nanites have been reactivated.

But wait! Gina and Trace (Alison Lohman, Drag Me to Hell) have survived and hack their way in. They reveal the secrets of Castle to the world and allow Simon to have control of Kable all over again.

Just in time — Castle was trying to get Kable to kill his own daughter, but Simon and Castle are now battling for control. Finally, Tillman tells Castle to imagine being stabbed, which allows him to break his control and kill the final boss. Then, he deactivates both Slayers and Society.

Finally, the Tillman family walks down a country road when the words “Game Over” appear. I’d ask if this was all a dream, but I’m not certain this movie is ready to make a narrative jump like that.

Gamer comes from the team of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, who were also responsible for Crank, Crank: High Voltage, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance and The Vatican Tapes. Whereas the Crank films feel like gleeful bursts of anarchy, this is a movie made by a mainstream studio that seeks to bite the hand that feeds. And unlike a film like They Live that escapes from the big budget process, this film takes so much glee in showing us the Slayers and Society worlds that you tend to wonder which side of the coin they are falling upon.

Also — Michael C. Hall appears to be in a completely different movie than everyone else. It’s like he wanted to sing and dance through an entire scene, so they said, “Hey, why not?”

Oh man — I also forgot that there’s a scene where Kable fills up a car by drinking gasoline, then puking and pissing into a gas tank. If this makes you want to watch this film, have at it!