The Woman in Black (1989)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Woman in Black (1989) – H. Wise

This British TV movie (not the more recent Daniel Radcliffe big screen release) was highlighted by The Guardian as containing one of the top 10 scariest ghosts of all time.  And, true enough, it is one of those low-key spooky affairs (not unlike the BBC’s M. R. James adaptations) that takes place in the early 20^th century where the old fashioned customs and surrounds add to the creepy ambience. Adrian Rawlins plays Arthur Kidd, a young lawyer who is ordered to attend to the affairs of a recently deceased widow who lived in an isolated old house on the marshes near the (fictional) seaside town of Crythin Gifford. No one in the village is keen to go anywhere near the house and no one shows up for the funeral of the widow, although the Kidd sees a mysterious woman in black that no one else acknowledges.  Of course, she is a ghost and, as it turns out, not a very friendly one (among the scariest of all time – maybe if you saw this as a child)!  Kidd eventually has to spend the night uncovering the facts in the haunted house and indeed it does send chills down your spine.  The screenplay is by Nigel Kneale (of Quatermass fame) from Susan Hill’s story. Although you might expect that this is the sort of TV movie where a happy ending awaits with the mystery of the ghost’s unhappy demise tied up with a bow – but you could be wrong!  Worth a look if you like eerie rather than gory, implicit rather than explicit horrors. 

 

Under the Shadow (2016)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Under the Shadow (2016) – B. Anvari

Set in Tehran during the ‘80s (near the end of the lengthy Iran-Iraq war), director Babak Anvari uses the ghost story genre to raise questions about gender roles in society (a critique that applies not only to the Middle East).  When her husband, a doctor, is called to duty in the warzone, Shideh (Narges Rashidi) is left to take care of their young daughter, Dorsa, on her own.  All seems fine (apart from Shideh’s stresses and the sexism directed against her) until a missile strikes their building, neighbours begin to flee the city, and Dorsa loses her favourite doll.  Soon, Dorsa is reporting that another woman promising to be a better mother has been talking to her. Shideh herself begins to see things moving in the apartment. One of the remaining neighbours begins claiming that there is a Djinn in the building, supposedly invited by the mute orphan she has taken in.  Indeed, the ghost appears in a full burka (or chador but we don’t see a face – perhaps invisible in there!) threatening Dorsa even as Shideh knows they must flee to the basement bomb shelter. In the end, apart from a few solid jump scares, the film is less scary or spooky than it is thought-provoking,  Not surprisingly, Anvari filmed this outside of Iran and its censors.   

Creepy (2016)

 ☆ ☆ ☆

Creepy (2016) – K. Kurosawa

After a case goes bad, Takakura leaves the police force and becomes a criminology professor.  But when a former colleague asks for his assistance, he can’t help but get sucked into investigating a cold case (the disappearance of three members of a local family), despite his wife’s hope that he would stay out of it.  In fact, he and his wife Yasuko (Yûko Takeuchi) had moved to a new neighbourhood to get a fresh start after he changed careers.  However, their new neighbours are distinctly unfriendly or awkward and weird.  Nevertheless, Yasuko grows closer to their strange next-door neighbour Nishino (Teruyuki Kagawa) who may be harbouring a secret that links him to the cold case.  Despite this intriguing set-up in line with earlier genre successes from director Kiyoshi Kurosawa (e.g., Cure, 1997), the subtitles let me down (seemingly created using Google Translate) and I suspect that I missed some important nuances.  For example, Yasuko’s motivations and behaviour seem to alter strangely without notice – although this may be due to some mysterious powers exerting influence on her (not unheard of in Kurosawa’s films which often include spooky and supernatural elements, hence this title).  I’m sure things must be much more coherent for native speakers.  (That said, Kurosawa has not always wanted to connect the dots in the past).  So, if you can find a proper source, this is likely a solid entry in the morbid serial killer police procedural genre.

  

A Dark Song (2016)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

A Dark Song (2016) – L. Gavin

Very spooky and sinister (and punctuated by my DVD player abruptly spitting out the disc at a particularly scary moment 85 minutes in).  Sophia (Catherine Walker) who harbors grief (and hate?) in her heart hires Joseph Solomon (Steve Oram) to help her perform an occult rite (based on Crowley) that will allow her to summon her guardian angel and speak to her dead son.  The rite involves months of gruelling and painful sacrifices inside an old mansion (surrounded by a ring of salt, of course).  First time director Liam Gavin expertly manages the tone and suspense, keeping things creepy even when nothing is happening – it is the air of expectation (and the shadows) that keeps viewers glued to the screen.  Will anything really happen or are these people simply desperate and confused? (Solid acting keeps us unsure).  And then, of course, things start to happen.  I missed about 60 seconds of the darkest moments, I think, due to the damaged disc – I don’t think things became too gruesome or sadistic (but I guess viewer beware).  The end reminded me of Michael Tolkin’s The Rapture (1991) -- which I should certainly watch again – conjuring up a reset of your expectations. Worth a look, esp. for the Halloween season.

Hue and Cry (1947)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Hue and Cry (1947) – C. Crichton

Yes, it’s corny at times and doesn’t scale the heights that the best Ealing comedies do, but if taken as a picture for kids, it certainly does the trick.  Amon watched this with me and, although the plot might become elusive at times for an 8 year old, there are enough fun moments to carry the day.  Harry Fowler plays Joe Kirby who discovers that a gang of crooks are using a weekly comic book (called The Trump, no less) to communicate through code about their next evil deeds.  Kirby tracks down the serial’s writer (Alastair Sim) and the publisher before he latches on to the evil mastermind (much closer to hand than expected) and uses an army of boys to dispatch him and his mates.  This is the part that Amon liked most.  For me, the most absorbing element was the location shooting in bombed out London of 1947 – everything seems destroyed but the kids run amok in the rubble.  Those were different times.  Worth a look, particularly if you are an Ealing completist.

 

Conflict (1945)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Conflict (1945) – C. Bernhardt

My PhD supervisor gave me a book called “Psychiatry and the Cinema” (Gabbard & Gabbard, 1987) and it’s a shame that this film is only relegated to a footnote.  Sydney Greenstreet plays a psychiatrist who seems pitched halfway between the Freudian psychoanalysts of yore and the cognitive behavioural therapists of today.  He suggests to Humphrey Bogart that obsessive thoughts can take hold of a person and need to be changed via talk therapy rather than surgery.  Of course, he doesn’t yet know that Bogie has become infatuated with the younger sister, Evelyn (Alexis Smith), of his wife, Kathryn (Rose Hobart) – and when the opportunity arises, when he has the perfect alibi, Bogie does kill Kathryn.  Or does he? Over the course of the second half of the film, clues materialise suggesting that she is still alive since her body was never discovered.  Bogie feels as though he is going crazy as a result which drives him to the story’s inevitable conclusion.  Although Bogie did not always play the good guy, his portrayal of the killer feels a bit more regressive to his earlier heavy roles rather than his more complex and ambivalent anti-heroes of the future (i.e., Treasure of the Sierra Madre, 1948; In a Lonely Place, 1950). We don’t feel much sympathy for him.  Greenstreet, in contrast, does make for a avuncular and positively framed psychologist – not always the case in Hollywood films of the day.

 

The Invisible Man (2020)

 ☆ ☆ ½

The Invisible Man (2020) – L. Whannell

I realise this is a horror film but does it have to be so grim and depressing? Yes, it’s topical and relevant with the villain (some powerful Silicon Valley start-up millionaire), a bona fide example of toxic masculinity, gaslighting and controlling poor Cecilia (Elisabeth Moss), even apparently from beyond the grave. Except we are pretty certain, given the film’s title, that he really has just found a way to fake his own death and turn invisible, so as to better stalk his ex (who we see trying to flee his abuse at the start of the film, pre-fake death).  So, the film is simply a bunch of stunts where havoc (and murder) is inflicted by someone not there – cue special effects (which probably wowed everyone in 1933 but are pretty ho-hum these days).  And I guess there is a twist but I wasn’t encouraged to care enough to be intrigued or surprised by it, especially when a lot of the characters here don’t seem to stay in character anyway (i.e. friends and family suddenly turn cold). To her credit, Moss holds the film together and could be considered an example of an empowered woman (by the end, if not for most of the running time where she is a stereotypical “woman in peril”).  To conclude:  I wanted to like it, but could not.

 

The Gentlemen (2019)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Gentlemen (2019) – G. Ritchie

After a few duds, Guy Ritchie has gone back to his trademark formula (Lock, Stock etc.) to offer up this easy-going action flick that is, well, all style and not much substance.  Sometimes that’s what you want but it isn’t going to inspire any deep thinking.  Matthew McConaughey is an American expat who has set up a very large cannabis syndicate in the UK, which he now wishes to sell.  However, the potential buyer and the competition are not particularly trustworthy.  We learn this because the story is told in flashback by Hugh Grant who plays a private detective who has been following the action and is now prepared to blackmail McConaughey by exposing him to the press.  He reveals what he knows to McConaughey’s loyal deputy (Charlie Hunnam) and the plot moves back and forward between the flashbacks and the interaction between Grant and Hunnam. Colin Farrell is good in a small well-defined role. It’s all a bit of fun but laced with profanity and sometimes derogatory slurs for ethnic and sexual minorities (why include this, I always think – it undercuts the fun).  As usual, the plot clicks into place with a few surprises -- but are surprises surprising when you expect them?     

 

The Love Witch (2016)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Love Witch (2016) – A. Biller 

Whereas this might look on the surface like an homage to (or spoof of) the sexploitation horror films of the late 60s/early 70s, it is something much more.  Director Anna Biller uses Brechtian tricks -- mainly the stilted vocal delivery of all characters but also the slow dreamlike pace – to get us to detach from the events at hand and ponder her aims.  And to her credit, these are not obvious nor simplistic.  Samantha Robinson stars as Elaine, the Love Witch of the title, who has fled San Francisco for a small Northern California town where she begins making candles and witchy objects and hooks up with an occult community (treated as a sizable minority in the town).  After the breakup of her marriage (we see her husband dead in flashback, seemingly after drinking a spiked drink), Elaine wants love and uses sex magick to try to get it.  Unfortunately, the men she lures do not respond as she had hoped – although they are keen for lovemaking (and self-objectification on Elaine’s part), they soon turn into needy emotional messes.  She may not have gotten the spells exactly right – or so she thinks. Soon, the police are after her – but he is certainly a hunky detective and she reels him in.  Despite its nudity and sex, it is easy to read this as a feminist film.  For one thing, it is told from Elaine’s point of view; she may not be aware of the inadequacy of sexualizing herself to achieve the love she wants – but viewers are; and other characters explicitly discuss women’s roles (and do not think it is to please men, first and foremost, as Elaine suggests). Beyond this, the film has many fanciful and surprising scenes (again with the quality of a dream) although some might feel it drags – but you’ve got to be impressed by Biller’s talents (she wrote, directed, edited, and did the production/costume design).  

 

Heavy Metal (1981)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Heavy Metal (1981) – G. Potterton et al.

When this was released, I was 14 and perhaps just the right age for its adolescent fantasy/sci-fi sex & violence cocktail.  But seeing it now, on the verge of its 40^th anniversary, was still something of a pleasure, notwithstanding its undeniably sexist pubescent wet dream fodder. “I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way” was the line from another movie.  But seriously, this is R-rated animation that reminded me of Philip K. Dick or Neuromancer or Beastmaster or Dungeons & Dragons.  All the stories (there are 6 or 7) are drawn from the pages of Heavy Metal magazine and held together by a connecting “plot” about an evil green orb.  The music here isn’t exactly what I think of as heavy metal (Black Sabbath and Blue Oyster Cult aside) and this would be much better rescored with some stoner rock, methinks.  So, don’t come for the music because perhaps surprisingly it isn’t the main game.  Another surprise was that the film’s voice cast is drawn from the ranks of SCTV (John Candy, Eugene Levy, Harold Ramis, Joe Flaherty, etc.) – but it isn’t mostly comedy (although there is some and some things are clearly tongue in cheek).  Instead, this is for animation geeks circa 1981 with some really great images and direction (and no doubt for teenage stoners as well). 

 

The More the Merrier (1943)

 ☆ ☆ ☆

The More the Merrier (1943) – G. Stevens

Somehow, I found myself underwhelmed by The More the Merrier and I’m rather hard-pressed to know why.  Perhaps it is because I’ve watched a few screwball comedies from the era recently and this film is far less madcap, even if it does conjure up a few chuckles.  Perhaps it is because Charles Coburn is so great as the slick swindler in Preston Sturges’ The Lady Eve (1941) that seeing him in a somewhat goofier role is rather off-putting.  Beyond that, this film feels dated in a way that other comedies of the period do not – it might be the references to wartime problems with housing and the shortage of men but it also might be the more sexist tone that director George Stevens adopts.  The plot sees Joel McCrea and Coburn moving into Jean Arthur’s apartment (due to housing supply issues) and the subsequent romance that blossoms (or is orchestrated by Coburn).  She’s engaged to someone else (a government bureaucrat) but really shouldn’t be.  The film gets the three leads into a variety of silly situations but still it doesn’t feel as chaotic as it should (for the genre). There seems to be a need to play to the home team, soldiers heading overseas and those remaining behind who are missing them – and this gentle aim undercuts any sharper bite that the comedy might deserve.  Again, I suspect my under-reaction is all about the comparison to other better films in the genre.  But don’t get me wrong – all three actors are funny and worth watching, they’re just better in other films.

  

The Third Murder (2017)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Third Murder (2017) – H. Kore-eda

I think I remember hearing that Kore-eda’s The Third Murder (the film before his Cannes winning Shoplifters, 2018) was a big hit in Japan. It stars Koji Yakusho as Misumi, a man who has confessed to murdering his boss, a factory owner, which would be his third murder, as he was only recently released from prison after serving a sentence for killing two yakuza loan sharks 30 years earlier.  Masaharu Fukuyama plays Shigemori, the defence lawyer who digs deeper into Misumi’s case when the facts don’t really line up.  For most of its running time, Kore-eda delivers us a crisp legal thriller as Shigemori and his team interview various witnesses and potential accessories, following up every lead and discussing matters with the somewhat cagey or confused Misumi.  Shigemori even travels to Hokkaido where the earlier murders took place.  However, Kore-eda seemingly has a different goal than to just serve up a genre film – his real interest lies in making a case that the death penalty as deliberated in Japan is extremely problematic, primarily because there is social pressure placed on everyone to make the system run smoothly and efficiently and thus dissent may be suppressed.  In getting this point across, Kore-eda seems to leave the answer to the question of Misumi’s real motives ambiguous.  Another goal of equating Misumi and Shigemori -- both have daughters as did the murder victim – seems more in line with Kore-eda’s usual focus on family drama, but the dots aren’t fully connected here.  I suspect that Japanese audiences may have gotten more out of the film in its native language and context. Still, the film does reward those who want to think about it, after the fact.

 

Ford v. Ferrari (2019)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Ford v. Ferrari (2019) – J. Mangold

There’s a lot of chest-thumping in Ford v. Ferrari – but what did you expect?  Matt Damon plays retired driver and race car designer/team leader Carroll Shelby and Christian Bale plays anti-social hotshot driver Ken Miles who team up to try to beat the Italians at the 1966 LeMans Grand Prix of Endurance (a 24-hour race).  I’m not into cars but nevertheless director James Mangold manages to pull all the strings to set up various tensions that keep the movie churning along:  underdog vs. Goliath, artistry vs. corporate manipulation, mano a mano.  Although Ferrari has to be beat, the real enemy here is Ford itself or at least their exec Leo Beebe (Josh Lucas) who doesn’t like Miles because he doesn’t project the right image to customers.  Lee Iacocca (yes him; Jon Bernthal) is in the Shelby/Miles camp but seems to have less power to influence Henry Ford II.  There’s a lot of back and forth over whether Miles will be able to drive for Ford or not.  And then there are the racing sequences which are in fact pretty good.  As usual, Bale loses himself in his character who does a lot of muttering while driving (in a Midlands accent that requires Bale to do something funny with his upper lip). Damon is, well, Damon.  The final coda feels tacked on and maybe should have been relegated to an onscreen postscript.  Fawning reviewers suggest that the film is a return to mainstream Hollywood filmmaking of yore (uh Rocky?), but your mileage (ha, ha) will depend on how much you enjoy this genre and its formula.

 

The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016) – A. Øvredal

With that title, you know exactly what you are going to get in this horror thriller -- and thanks to the acting of Brian Cox and Emile Hirsch (as father-son coroners) and the direction by André Øvredal, we actually get it.  In other words, this is a tight little chiller (at 87 minutes) that manages to keep its creepy sensations going all the way through.  Of course, if you are looking for something plausible or believable, then that isn’t what you’ll find here.  The film starts spooky (an autopsy of a mysterious young woman in a dark basement) and quickly moves to supernatural bumps in the night and then well, yeah, worse.  But apart from the autopsy itself (gruesome), this is more in the Val Lewton tradition of things that you don’t see (that could get you) rather than explicit (usually phony) monsters made with makeup, prosthetics, or special effects.  An amusement park ride for those escapist October moods.

Motherless Brooklyn (2019)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Motherless Brooklyn (2019) – E. Norton

The structure of the old political film noir (corrupt officials are behind everything) is plain to see in the bones of Edward Norton’s second directorial effort.  However, Norton loses the bite of the best noir by slowing the pace and labouring over every moment.  Sure, the 1950s period details are perfect and the various players are well chosen – but everyone, particularly Norton, is given far too much screen time to try to dazzle us.  A crisper film that tightened some of the more extended scenes (Lionel’s night in the jazz club) and moved more efficiently from clue to clue would have been better.  Of course, the aim here may have been to replicate the woozy success of Chinatown, where the hero is lost in the labyrinth, unable to piece together the facts until it is too late.  Norton’s detective protagonist (Motherless Brooklyn/Lionel Essrog/Freakshow) is designed with built in “flaws” in that he has Tourette’s Syndrome (the film was apparently approved by a society of people with this disorder) – which makes his investigation all the more difficult (or maybe not; it feels mostly like a showcase for Norton to demonstrate his acting prowess not unlike other roles he has taken).  Bruce Willis is used for good effect in a small part, Willem Dafoe overdoes it a bit, and Alec Baldwin seems rather too subdued (a missed opportunity). But, for fans of the genre, this may still hit the spot, even if the ultimate feeling is one of disappointment.