Based on All Things Cease to Appear by Elizabeth Brundage, this movie reminded me equally of Cold Creek Manor and What Lies Beneath, except that it really makes great use of Thomas Cole and the Hudson River School of painters.
Catherine Clare (Amanda Seyfried) had a career as an art restorer in Manhattan until her husband George (James Norton) lies his way into a job teaching art history in Chosen, New York. In their new home, Catherine finds an old ring and a Bible with the names of those who had once lived in the house scratched out.
Much like the aforementioned Cold Creek Manor, the children of the last tenants come to help fix up the house. Beyond the supernatural feeling of the home, George starts sleeping around and alienating his wife from any relationships that she starts to form.
By the end of the film, George has gone from bad husband to pretty much a supervillain, taking the paintings of his dead cousin as his own, attacking anyone who will keep his perfect life from continuing and spitting profanity at anyone near him.
But hey! Michael O’Keefe from Caddyshack shows up, as does Karen Allen as his wife. F. Murray Abraham is — as always — dependable. And the ending is pretty wide open to interpretation, as is a scene where Catherine pulls a flesh-colored tadpole out of the sink while she’s trying to get her ring out of the drain.
Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini have directed several movies together, including The Nanny Diaries, Girl Most Likely and American Splendor.
A lot of reviews of this movie have been upset that the film seems to be building to something and just kind of ends. As for me, that was the thing that I really liked. It just gets wild at the end and enters a world where things don’t make sense. Then again, I like the ending of The Beyondand my taste is not to be trusted at all.
A woman is admitted into a hospital for emergency surgery, but then awakens trapped in a bizarre medical facility where patients are treated like lab rats, mutilated over and over again, then healed by doctors, as if they were in some afterlife version of Men Behind the Sun. Is this heaven? It is hell? Or is it somewhere in between?
Director Peter Daskaloff also made Girls After Dark and Sex and the Single Alien, while writer Matt Toronto was the writer and director of Face 2 Face. They’ve put together a tense film that really leads one to question the answers to the fate of its characters. Yet without giving anything away, the ending feels like a cop-out after the film has painted itself into a corner. Ah well, you can’t expect everything, right?
Probably the best-known actor in this movie would be Ashlynn Yennie, who you may recognize as Jenny, the rear section in The Human Centipede. Louis Mandylor, who was in the My Big Fat Greek Wedding series as Nick Portokalos is also in this. He was also the sheriff in Rambo: Last Blood. In fact, there are plenty of Greek actors in the cast.
Antidote is available on demand and on DVD from Uncork’d Entertainment.
Carroña is Spanish for “carrion,” a word that defines the decaying flesh of dead animals. In Spanish cultures the word is also used as a slang to describe others as a “scum” or “low life.” And this stellar — but gratuitously graphic — Argentina-shot feature film debut by co-directors and writers Eric Fleitas and Luciana Garraza — along with writer Sheila Fentana — for only $10,000 (?!), is filled with scumbags. And meat . . . lots of meat. And the meat in this world — that the film’s marketing materials describe as Mad Max meets Natural Born Killers — is human.
While that tagline is accurate, one can also describe Carroña, retitled as Scavenger for the English speaking markets, as an ’80s-styled slasher antagonist set loose in a post apocalyptic world.
We witness the beginning of the world’s downfall as a family enjoys a chicken dinner birthday celebration for their youngest daughter, Laura. On a television, her father grows concerned over reports of the collapse of their country’s government as their city falls under the control of rioters and vandals (sounds all-too current and 2020 familiar). Then a bandit violently bursts into the home and slaughters the family.
Years later, the lone survivor of the attack, Laura’s older sister, Tisha, now lives a leather-clad, Max Rockatansky existence in the wastelands — complete with a super-charged black car. To make her way in the new world, Tisha works as an assassin for hire and sidelines as “gut hunter” for an organs merchant (writer-director Eric Fleitas). And she has no reservations in slicing up the pigs (i.e, men) in this new world that views women as a “cunt or a corpse.” After a harvesting, Tisha then sell the leftovers to a market kiosk serving up “100% meat” to its customers who, themselves, will probably become the next serving. The endgame to her post-apoc extracurricular activities: Tisha’s financing her hunt of the brutal cartel that murdered her family.
When Tisha is offered a new contract by a dying, mutilated victim — and realizes the target is the animal that slaughtered her family all those years ago — she hits the road to “fuck up” her latest sanction. When she confronts her target inside the brothel Paradise, the tables turn as she comes a bondage-sex victim at the hands of Luna, the bar’s seductive and deadly lead dancer, and Roger, the club’s owner.
Do the tables turn. Oh, you’re damn right they do. And violently so.
While inspired by The Road Warrior, this Argentinian import was independently shot without studio interference, so this isn’t your pop’s Mad Max or Jason Voorhees. Scavenger — although rife with amazingly slick-cum-grungy production values on its $10,000 budget (?!), it’s a rough film; a very graphic film overflowing with organ extractions, cannibalism, sex trafficking, and a society perpetually victimized by abuse at the hands of perverts and rapists — very, very violent rapists that are only implied in Hollywood’s A-List Mad Max-verse, but shown in full color (in a shot that seems to go on forever and rivals the “forever” rape scene in The Redeemer). If you thought you cringed at the tasteless, homosexual rape scene of Scorpion by “The One” in Enzo G. Castellari’s post-apoc’er Warriors of the Wasteland, then watching a rapist attach various dildos to vaginally, then anally, rape Tisha, your stomach will turn. You’ve been warned.
But aside from the ’70s-styled violence that takes us back to Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left, what Eric Fleitas and Luciana Garraza accomplished on their micro-budget — from set design, to costuming, and to securing the services of finely-skill actors, is amazing — and I look forward to their next film.
Disclaimer: We didn’t received a screener from the studio’s P.R. firm. We purchased the film on our own. That has no bearing on our review.
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook.He also writes for B&S About Moviesand publishes short stories and music reviews on Medium.
Following the death of his son, Jorge travels from conservative Bolivia to NYC to confront Sebastian, who was his son’s lover. While he struggles to accept the life of his son, Sebastian begins to write a play that celebrates his deceased lover.
Tu Me Manques was the official selection for the Best International Feature Film in the 2019 Academy Awards. Now, it’s available in America.
The title, which means I Miss You, tells the story of Gabriel’s life intercut with the idealized version of his life within Sebastian’s play. Meanwhile, we follow Jorge as he searches New York City to try and find something to remember of his son.
Gabriel is played by several actors in this — within the real life of the movie and the play within it — and his suicide hangs over the future of every person that remains. This is an emotional watch but one worth viewing.
Tu Me Manques is available on demand and on DVD from Dark Star Pictures. You can learn more on the official Facebook page.
An elite team of vigilantes has a plan to steal $14 billion dollars of laundered money from a mob boss. But after being double-crossed, they end up in the middle of nowhere in the home of a mysterious family with a secret: the man of the house is a creature of the night!
Justin Price directed The Mummy Rebirth, which we reviewed several months back, and this film is a nice mash-up of genres. It takes quite a while to get to the supernatural reveal, much like Predator, which is very appreciated.
I did really enjoy the opening gun battle and the ambiguity of the characters. The press for this tries to sell it as Resident Evil, which is not at all what the story is about, but it’s a good hook to get people excited. There’s some decent gore in this and it’s definitely the best movie I’ve seen Price make so far.
Wrong Place, Wrong Time is available on demand and on DVD from Uncork’d Entertainment.
Bill Johnson (Bill Oberst Jr.) has lost his daughter to an opioid overdose and while his podcast about the epidemic helps him deal with the loss, he still feels like he could do more. Perhaps something like wearing a mask and becoming a vigiilante out to violently stop the sale of pills? That seems like a plan.
Director Mark Savage — who co-wrote this with Tom Parnell* — makes a lean and mean Death Wish for today out of this movie. It’s tightly edited and pulses with energy, never outstaying its welcome. Some may be put off by the heavy messaging in the movie, but it definitely believes in its subject matter. That’s because Parnell lost his daughter to a opioid overdose, so you can completely understand his mindset here.
What also helps make this movie better than expectations are its stars. Michael Paré is a long-time favorite and, as always, he brings something extra to his role. And Oberst knows how to play the damaged hero quite well. This could have been simple wish fulfillment, but boh actors add a gravitas to this film that take it a step above.
*They’ve worked together to make the movies Purgatory Road and Stressed to Kill as well, the latter of which features Oberst’s character killing people to keep his blood pressure down. Plus, it has Armand Assante in it! Painkiller was originally called Stressed to Kill: Doctor’s Orders, so it is a spiritual sequel at the very least.
Tom (Christian James, Hell Fest) has become a human lab rat to try to make enough money to survive, becoming part of his father’s (James Russo, whose career stretches back to being the robber in Fast Times at Ridgemont High) memory experiment. But when he’s accused of a crime that he can’t recall, he must risk his own sanity to reveal the truth, even if the court has a digital backup of his mind.
Father and son have never gotten along, so one night after an argument, our protagonist wakes up in the yard and, as stated above, suddenly learns that he may have killed his father, who has created a program that can reinstall your memories.
This is the first script that Garry D. Houk has written (he also was part of the film’s art department). It’s also the first full-length movie from director Arvi. And while there are issues with length and the story, it’s not a bad film. It has some great ideas and could have been a bit shorter, but both will be talents to look for in the future.
Cerebrum is available on demand from Glasshouse Distribution. You can learn more on the official website and Facebook page.
Sarah and James (Kristen Krak and Addison Anderson) are in love, the kind of love where you start talking about living together. Then, the world that Sarah has built for the two of them falls apart, because her mother, the woman that she’s always told him is dead, just so happens to show up and be completely and utterly alive. Whoops.
Her mother, Totie (Jackie Debatin, who played Elizabeth the Stripper in three episodes of The Office), along with her one-eyed partner Dimpy (Bill Rutkoski, who also wrote this) seem more like children than Sarah. Perhaps even scarier is that Totie is about to have another baby. This reunion brings the entire family — including Grandma (Vivien Landau, Shiva Baby) — for that most matronly of holidays, Mother’s Day.
You can guess from the name of this movie that things don’t go oh so well, right?
Director, producer and editor Dan Karlok is a vet of Law and Order, worked for 22 episodes as a best boy and 44 as a gaffer. He also directed Joan Rivers: Exit Laughing and Sid Caesar: On the Language of Comedy.
Rutkoski brother Mike — who wrote Baby Frankenstein — plays one of the weird uncles, Donny, while another sibling, John, plays yet another uncle named Lenny. This is one out there family, as they’re given to randomly recreating Planet of the Apes as part of their holiday celebration.
We get more horror than comedies sent to us, but if you’re looking for a break from all the mayhem and a funny way to spend the holiday with or without your mom, check out Crappy Mother’s Day, which is available on demand from Uncork’d Entertainment. You can learn more on the official Facebook page.
I’ve seen so many reviews of this movie that seem to take great enjoyment making fun of it and saying things like, “Who cares about a Mortal Kombat movie?”
Well, I do. I’m the exact audience for this movie, someone who fell in love with the game, saw both of the original films in the theater and have purchased more than my fair share of the multiple sequels and all the DLC that goes with them.
So while these holier than thou critics snicker their way through their reviews, please know that this is someone hoping Stryker would show up and someone that grinded to get multiple Scorpion outfits in Mortal Kombat 11.
That means that when I mention all the moments why this movie didn’t work, it’s with sadness.
That’s because I’ve been waiting — as have many fans of the game — for this movie for a long time.
And this isn’t what I was waiting for.
Now, there’s the blood and gore that some see as the true heart of Mortal Kombat, but for me, the true joy of the games is the opportunity to be part of a wuxia movie. That would seem to be an incredibly simple idea to take and make a movie of — hey, they did it right the first time — and yet, this doesn’t seem to do it.
Yes, the Mortal Kombat tournament doesn’t happen in every game, but the story has always revolved around it. Much like every shared universe attempt, this is a movie trying to make the sequel instead of worrying about making the first movie rock.
The other critical error this movie makes is that outdated thought that we need a set of human eyes to view these events through, someone we can relate to. That would be Cole Young, a struggling MMA artist who has a family bloodline that ties to Scorpion. This is also kind of like how old comics thought that I needed a child sidekick to better identify with Batman. Nope. I’m just fine with wanting to be the hero and even better with unworldly characters that allow me to escape the world of normlacy.
Speaking of the gray ordinary world, this movie seems content to have the action take place outside a farmhouse than taking us to the Outworld or really anywhere that isn’t drab. Look, I’m not expecting this to be Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain, but come on. The beginning at least flirts with bright colors and great fighting. And then…
That said, I kind of liked that Tadanobu Asano — Kakihara from Ichi the Killer — was Raiden, even if he doesn’t get all that much to do. Josh Lawson’s Kano is one of the few other bright spots, even if this version just has a red eye and isn’t a cyborg. And I’m always happy to see Kabal.
But you know, the first film in what may be a new series gets rid of Goro and Sub-Zero before we even get to the tournament, while tickling us with a mention of Johnny Cage. It’s the inverse of Patton Oswald’s joke about the Star Wars prequels — “Don’t show me how the things I love started, show me the things I love!” — and like some weird edging thing where they withhold the sure thing in the hopes of getting you to care more about a movie that might never get made instead of the one you paid to watch.
Xander (Chris Kozlowski in only his second role) is a witch whose use of black magic has never led to anything positive. He’s trying to go cold turkey on witchcraft, but when he helps a young man named Roland Grimm (Jackson Trent) needs his help with the pains of growing up, he decides to start working his magic again.
Directed by Victor Fink (his first directoral effort; he was also the film’s co-director) and Joshua Land (I Like Me, which also featured Kozlowski), the film starts with our hero — when he was just a little boy — finding the ritually murdered body of his father. The book of spells that he finds leads him to a life of using magic to get whatever he wants and the bad karma that comes with it.
Will helping a teen in need help him change his path? This movie switches from comedy to darkness while featuring some unexpected story beats and decent effects.
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