I had some extra time after watching the latest kung fu movie in my mini-marathon, so I turned on Netflix to see what was new. I don’t use Netflix as often as I probably should, so there were a lot of things added since the last time I browsed. I tend to spend way too long looking for something to watch when I begin browsing Netflix, so I decided to just take a look at the first thing that caught my eye. That movie ended up being No Escape Room, and I thought it was pretty good.
No Escape Room is a supernatural horror movie about a father and daughter who get stranded in a small town and pass the time waiting for their car to be repaired by trying out a local escape room. If you’re unfamiliar with an escape room, it’s basically a game where people are locked in a room together and have to solve riddles and puzzles to unlock a door and escape. The father, Michael, and daughter, Karen, seem to have something of a strained relationship, and the weekend was supposed to be a bonding trip for the two of them. So, Michael tends to try too hard, and Karen tends to barely try at all when it comes to forming a good relationship. The activity of doing an escape room might be good for them though.
Michael and Karen are joined by three strangers, Andrew, Melanie, and Tyler, who are also there to participate in the escape room. Melanie is the escape room expert, her boyfriend Tyler doesn’t want to be there, and Andrew is something of a mystery. With all of the necessary character types included to help explain the game and create tension among themselves, the movie moves along well with only the necessary amount of exposition and explanation. Things seem off about the escape room right away though, and the escape room ends up being an escape house with some eerily realistic dangers lurking about. Mysteries are built and unraveled, people are separated, and scariness ensues.
No Escape Room is a TV movie so there are clear spots where commercial breaks would be inserted, but if those weren’t there I wouldn’t have expected it to be made for TV. It’s kind of scary at times, there a bit of blood and violence, and overall I really enjoyed the mystery and the tone. As the movie goes on, the mystery of the house does feel like it begins to get a bit too convoluted to the point where it barely makes much sense anymore, but it was still fun enough to watch. By that point I was invested enough in Karen’s story that the parts of the movie that felt out of place didn’t bother me too much. The movie has a very campy ending, but again, I though it was fine.
For me, the best bits were towards the middle of the movie where we were still learning things and the house still felt like a big puzzle. After a while it becomes more psychological and supernatural, and that wasn’t quite as fun for me. I still enjoyed it though. I’d recommend No Escape Room for a light horror movie with more mystery than scare, but don’t expect many satisfying conclusions for the characters. Some of them come to very abrupt ends once their usefulness to the plot has been exhausted.
I thought I’d take a short break from my kung fu marathon to finish a movie I started watching the other night but fell asleep about halfway through. That’s not a good sign, is it? I did start the movie pretty late at night so falling asleep isn’t a great predictor about how I feel about the movie, but falling asleep during a movie I’ve never seen before isn’t a resounding endorsement either. The movie in question in Night Vision, a 1987 psychological thriller labelled as “horror” on Tubi and IMDB. I don not consider Night Vision a horror movie, and I don’t consider it a very good movie either. Even though the ideas are pretty good, the execution feels like it’s stretched out with not much happening for long periods of time.
Night Vision is about Andy, a naïve young man from Kansas who travels to the big city of Denver, Colorado to try to gain some life experience to help inspire his fledgling writing career. Andy meets a cast of colorful characters including a thief/street hustler named Vinnie and a video store clerk named Jill who is fed up with big city life. Vinnie and Andy become fast friends, and Vinnie gifts Andy a TV and VCR that he stole and is attracting unwanted attention from dangerous guys in black robes. There was a tape in the VCR that mostly shows static to begin with, but eventually begins to show Andy frightening images of violence and satanic rituals that may or may not be real. Meanwhile, Andy is forming a relationship with Jill, but Andy’s mental state is degenerating and causes problems between the two of them. Is the big city wearing Andy down like its worn down Jill, or is there something more sinister going on?
I enjoy the idea of a horror movie based on some sort of mystical/psychological influence of TV and videos, but it’s not like the idea was original even in 1987. The first movie that springs to mind like this is the great Videodrome from 1983, but as I’ve said before, I don’t mind a good rip-off. The issue I have with Night Vision is that it just drags too much for my taste.
There is a whole lot of character building in Night Vision which is fine, but at some point I’d like to have something happen to begin to ramp up the tension. Over an hour into the movie I still felt like the movie was just building Andy’s character, and the images on his TV barely seemed to play a part in the story. That changes in the final 40 minutes (the movie is 1 hour 40 minutes long), but nothing really happens until the final fifteen minutes or so. By that point I was kind of checked out, even watching it in two pieces since I fell asleep on the first try.
Maybe if I hadn’t expected a horror movie I would feel differently, but I couldn’t really get into Night Vision. If kind of just made me want to watch Videodrome.
I couldn’t find an official trailer, so here’s a poor copy of the full movie on YouTube.
I’m doing a little catch-up today after getting behind in posting (and watching) my movies of the day, so this entry might be shorter than most. But really, what is there to say about Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho that hasn’t already been said? Not much. Even so, I’ll take you through a little bit of my experience watching it again for the first time in quite a while.
If you’re unfamiliar, Psycho stars Janet Leigh as Marion Crane, a woman who steals a great deal of money in a spur-of-the-moment decision. Marion drives out of town to surprise her lover with the money that could free them both from the debts keeping them apart, but a rain storm causes Marion to stop for the night at a secluded motel. Psycho also stars Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates, the quiet and rather nervous young man who runs the motel. Norman seems nice, and he takes a liking to Marion, but when Marion overhears Norman’s elderly and overbearing mother yelling at Norman, it begins to become clear that there is something dark within the Bates family. If you’ve really never seen the movie and don’t know what happens after that, I certainly won’t spoil it here. Psycho is a must-watch for all people who love movies.
I’ve seen Psycho a fair number of times, and even though I hadn’t seen it in a while, many of the scenes came back to me right away. It had been long enough where I didn’t remember the specifics of the dialogue and performances though, and that’s what really struck me during this watch.
Anthony Perkins is amazing as Norman Bates. The complexity of emotions he displays in pretty much every scene is astounding. The character of Norman Bates would certainly typecast Perkins for much of his career, but what a role to be remembered for. Two scenes in particular stood out to me this time with regards to Perkins’ performance. The first is when he has a conversation with Marion in the lounge of the motel. Janet Leigh is fantastic as well, and both Marion and Norman leave the conversation as different people than we thought they were when they entered it. Then, later in the film, Norman has to speak to a private detective, and the mounting tension hidden just beneath Norman’s words and voice is incredible.
Norman has a way of unintentionally drawing people in with his quiet charm and slight naivete, and Perkins’ performance does the same to the audience. We start to feel for Norman, and that makes the twists and turns more effective when the darkness in the Bates family is revealed. Even if you know how the movie ends, and I’m sure you probably do, the characters are so well developed that the tension still works greatly.
I’ve never seen the sequels to Psycho, nor have I seen the 1998 remake. I kind of don’t want to watch any of them for different reasons, but with a movie a day to watch, I might try them out at some point.
Today’s movie is Death of Me, a psychological/supernatural horror movie starring Maggie Q and Luke Hemsworth (brother of Chris and Liam). The movie was released in October of 2020, and it was recently added to Netflix which is where I watched it. After watching The King of Fighters recently I’ve been on the lookout for more Maggie Q movies that I haven’t seen, so this was an easy choice for my movie of the day.
Death of Me is about a couple, Christine (Maggie Q) and Neil (Luke Hemsworth), who are vacationing in a small village off the coast of Thailand. Christine and Neil wake up on what is supposed to be their final day on the island with no memory of the previous night and with their rental room in shambles. They don’t have much time to think about what happened as they scramble to catch a ferry to the mainland so they can head home, but when they both discover that their passports are missing, they begin to suspect something is seriously wrong. Christine and Neil then begin to try to piece together the previous night, only to uncover a dark mystery that begins with the couple finding a video on Neil’s phone of him apparently killing Christine.
From there the movie progresses in a Wicker-Man-esque way with the locals becoming more sinister as they prepare for a local festival. Christine’s health begins to deteriorate and she sees flashes of frightening images, but are the things she’s experiencing real, or are they just hallucinations? Can she even trust Neil after what she saw on the video? It all builds up to a mostly satisfying climax with more than a little predictability.
For me, the best part of Death of Me is Maggie Q’s performance. The mystery of the movie feels familiar and is often pretty easy to predict, but Maggie Q helps sell every scene with her mixture of fear, annoyance, and anger. There is one scene late in the movie that I won’t spoil, but it’s a great and surprising moment of Christine having just about enough of the way everyone has been treating her, and she finally decides to do something about it. I’m sure you’ll know what I’m talking about when you see it.
Overall though, I thought Death of Me was just okay. It’s not particularly scary like the cover artwork may lead you to believe, and the mystery doesn’t feel super mysterious to me. The movie feels like it emulates similar plots including the aforementioned Wicker Man (which is actually mentioned in the movie by Neil), but I am glad I kept watching until the end. I was feeling a lot of frustration just like Christine was (well, maybe not just like Christine, but I was getting annoyed with how people were treating her), and seeing Christine lash out was pretty satisfying. I’d say give this a watch is you really enjoy psychological thrillers, but maybe watch the trailer first to get a feel for the tone of the movie.
Today’s movie choice was another decision largely guided by the film’s poster. Whenever I want to watch something old and trashy, more and more I find myself going to Tubi and skimming through their catalog. I’ll find a movie that looks somewhat interesting, then I’ll keep clicking through the recommendations that movie pulls up until I find something that forces me to stop. This time, it was Michael Berryman that gave me pause. The poster for today’s movie, Cut and Run, features an amazing image of Michael Berryman getting ready to swing a machete at a group of unsuspecting people in what appears to be some sort of jungle lake or river. That was all I needed to see. My search for the night was over.
Cut and Run is an Italian production, but it was filmed primarily in English with a predominantly American lead cast. The film stars Lisa Blount (of Prince of Darkness fame) as Fran, a reporter who is looking to break a huge story to boost her career. Fran is joined by her cameraman, Mark, as she heads to South America to follow a lead that involves a bloody drug war, a supposedly dead cult leader, and her boss’s missing son. It’s a very convenient set of circumstances that sets up what the movie is really mostly all about: Fran and Mark trying to stay alive in a South American jungle as they are chased by vicious natives and, of course, Michael Berryman.
Cut and Run was directed by Ruggero Deodato, and even if you don’t know that name, you might be familiar with his most famous movie: the notoriously brutal Cannibal Holocaust. While Cut and Run is not anywhere near as violent and disturbing as Cannibal Holocaust, it does share a lot of the same themes. The movies are so similar that even before I realized who directed Cut and Run, I was noting many common themes. I won’t spoil anything for either movie, but both of them focus heavily on the juxtaposition of savagery and civilized society. That theme is central to Cannibal Holocaust and is explored in nearly every second of its run time. The theme takes more of a backseat in Cut and Run, but it’s still very clear when we see repeated feeds of Fran in the jungle being transmitted live to plush, high-tech offices in the United States. Also, both movies feature similar locations, and the usage of the native people is largely the same. So yeah, there are lots of similarities, but Cut and Run is WAY more accessible for general audiences.
I do think I watched the tame version of Cut and Run though. Looking at a few reviews, I see people referring to excessive violence and nudity. I saw some violence and nudity, but not to the extent I see some of these reviews describing. Also, some of the edits looked very abrupt and janky, so I’m going to blame that on the additional cuts.
I’d be interested in watching Cut and Run again with the longer, more extreme cut so I can see what I missed. As it is, I enjoyed what I saw. It might try to do a little too much for a movie that’s basically about violence and survival (there’s a Jim-Jones-esque sub-plot and the missing son thing feels unnecessary), but it’s still fun. I will say that I was very disappointed when a certain character didn’t make it to the end of the movie, but I got over my grief and still managed to have a good time. As for a recommendation, I think Cut and Run is a fun action movie with some nice, cheesy violence. If you like action movies set in a jungle (which seemed to happen a lot in the 80s), and if you like Michael Berryman, I’d say give the movie a shot.
Like many other people around the world, I’m a big fan of The Mandalorian. I’m a fan not only because it’s a fantastic series that makes exceptional use of the larger Star Wars universe, but it also introduced me to Pedro Pascal. I know now that I’d seen Pascal in some of his previous roles including parts in Kingsman: The Golden Circle and The Equalizer 2, but The Mandalorian was the first time his name and face (what little we see of it) really stuck with me. I’m at the point now where I will watch pretty much anything he’s in. So when I was cruising through Netflix and saw Pedro Pascal in a sci-fi movie, it was an easy decision to stop searching and end my usually-too-long Netflix browsing session.
The movie I stopped down on was Prospect. It’s a sci-fi thriller/drama from 2018 starring Pedro Pascal and Sophie Thatcher. The story takes place sometime in the future where Cee (Thatcher) travels to an alien moon with her father (played by Jay Duplass). Cee’s father, Damon, is a prospector, and he and Cee are on the alien moon to dig up enough valuable gems to set them up for life. Naturally though, a score as big as the one Damon describes to his daughter comes with a lot of dangers and drawbacks. Not only are the gems volatile and dangerous to acquire, but Damon was given the information by a group of ruthless mercenaries who are currently guarding the site. On top of that, Damon and Cee’s landing pod goes off course and breaks on its way down to the surface of the moon, the air on the moon is toxic, and Damon and Cee have a strict time limit or they’ll be abandoned when the main ship in orbit departs on a set schedule with or without them. So yeah, lots of problems. Also, there are bandits/people trying to survive in the moon’s forest, and that’s where we meet Ezra (played by Pedro Pascal).
I don’t really want to go into any more detail about the plot beyond the setup, because the twists and turns that the story takes are really well done and deserve to be experienced rather than explained. All I’ll really is is that what follows after the setup is a tense and dramatic story of survival, trust, and humanity. There is some action here and there, but for the most part the movie focuses on the tense relationships between the characters as they try to move forward in what sometimes feels like a hopeless situation.
Prospect is a very pretty movie. The jungle of the alien moon feels familiar in many ways, but it also always feels slightly alien as well. At times the overgrown vegetation is pleasing to look at, but when you look closer and see the plants overtaking a rotting spacesuit or the remains of a previous dig gone wrong, you start to get a sense of the dangers the plants might be hiding. Also, the air feels thick with all sorts of things floating around, and if you have pollen allergies like me, you can really start to feel it in your head and chest just watching the movie.
The acting in Prospect is great as well, and that’s probably the biggest reason why I enjoyed the movie so much. Thatcher and Pascal have great chemistry in their antagonistic relationship, and their performances help enhance the tension of every scene. Pascal in particular is wonderful. Without spoiling anything, there is one scene rather late in the movie where something gross and potentially traumatic has to happen. Rather than focus of the spectacle of the gross actions taking place though, the camera focuses on Pascal’s face as everything is happening just off screen. Pascal’s reactions tell you everything you need to know, and the range of emotions he conveys in that single shot are pretty amazing.
I would recommend Prospect to pretty much anyone who enjoys a good, tense thriller/drama. If you enjoy science fiction as well, then that’s a great bonus. There’s enough sci-fi jargon to scratch that sci-fi itch, but there’s not so much that it’s going to block people out who don’t care about spaceships and alien worlds. The focus of the movie is largely on building characters with a bit of action, so if that’s your thing, definitely check out Prospect.
Promising Young Woman (2020) – A Movie A Day 2021 #1
Like many movies that were supposed to be released theatrically in the first half of 2020, I’d seen the trailer for Promising Young Woman many, many times due to repeated delays and uncertainty of just when it would finally be released once theaters gradually started to re-open. I tend to go to the theater a lot, and I’ll often start to tune out when I see the same trailers over and over, but Promising Young Woman always held my interest every time I saw its trailer. The clips made the movie look like a fun revenge thriller, and I’m a big fan of revenge movies. Trashy or classy, good or not-so-good… I’m pretty much always in the mood to watch some revenge. Promising Young Woman didn’t look trashy from the trailer, but it did feel like it might be a stylish yet simple film with its bright colors, violent and angry tone, and what looked like a setup for a huge revenge set-piece with multiple victims. Now that I’ve seen the movie, I can say Promising Young Woman is far more than a simple rape/revenge thriller. It’s a topical dive into the psyche of a traumatized woman that manages to twist out some thrills, very dark humor, and even a few touching moments out of a heavy and inevitably heartbreaking story.
Carey Mulligan stars as Cassandra (Cassie to her friends if she were to have any), a woman who has had her life derailed by a past trauma. The movie begins with a scene very familiar to anyone who has seen the trailer multiple times like I have. Cassandra appears to be drunk and helpless at a bar, so a “nice guy” offers to help her get home safely. When the kind gesture turns into a predatory situation involving the guy’s apartment, alcohol, and his bed, Cassandra reveals she was never drunk to begin with. Cassandra’s tone becomes sober, serious, and threatening. We cut away from the shocked look on the guy’s face, and we next see Cassandra walking home, hot dog in hand, with ketchup running down her arm and onto her shirt. Well, it’s probably all ketchup. Maybe.
And that’s one of the many things I really enjoyed about Promising Young Woman. Many things are held back from us, the viewer, but not in a frustrating way. If you’re like me, then you might want to see Cassandra get a bit of revenge in that opening scene. A little violence that leads to a little catharsis. But that’s not what Promising Young Woman is about. It’s not about the violence. Violence, as we later find out, is what contributed to Cassandra’s current state of mind, though not in as direct of a way as you might assume. To see her be violent right away would take away from her journey and it would change the focus of the film. The focus of Promising Young Woman isn’t on setting up multiple violent acts of revenge, the focus is on getting to know Cassandra and watching as she is forced to deal with her past trauma catching up to her.
So what is the trauma I’m dancing around but not talking about? I don’t want to say. One of the things that first-time feature director and screenwriter Emerald Fennell does so very well in this movie is knowing exactly how and when to peel back the layers of Cassandra’s life and mind. We quickly learn that Cassandra has been catching predators (so to speak) for a very long time. We’re not sure exactly how long, but her living situation and diary are strong indicators that she’s been living like this for many years. She’s been living a double life so long that the few people she’s close to begin to take notice and worry. Just when it feels like Cassandra might be forced into decisions she doesn’t want to make, someone from her past enters her life and everything changes.
And that’s really all I want to say about the plot. The movie isn’t a mystery or anything, but again, it’s constructed in a way that gives you just enough information at just the right time. I would be doing a disservice to the viewer if I were to give away any more plot than I already have (and I haven’t given away anything you can’t glean from the trailer).
So, I went into the theater expecting fun revenge, but what I got was heavy, character-driven revenge. And I thought it was great. Not only are the writing and direction superb, but the movie is constantly visually engaging. I could take a deep dive into the visual metaphors and motifs throughout the film, but that’s a bit more than is relevant in a review like this. Plus, diving too deep would give away too much, and if you’re interested in seeing Promising Young Woman, I’d suggest going into it knowing as little about the plot as I’ve shared here. I’ll just say that the visuals of the film (color choices, lighting, camera angles, framing, blocking, etc.) all enhance the tone of the film immensely.
Something else that also struck me while watching the movie was how great the cast is. Carey Mulligan is fantastic as a woman who seems to be emotionally teetering on the edge of something much, much darker throughout most of the film. Beyond Carey Mulligan though, the rest of the cast is made up of incredibly strong performers including Allison Brie, Alfred Molina, Laverne Cox, Clancy Brown, and Bo Burnham as the agonizingly charming character of Ryan. Some roles are smaller than others, but the performances make each of them feel vitally important.
I’m sure it’s clear by now that I highly recommend Promising Young Woman. It’s probably not going to be to everyone’s liking (it’s definitely not a feel-good movie), but I thought it was great. I wouldn’t even begin to claim to be an expert on the specific subject matter explored, as far as revenge movies go, I think that aspect was handled in a surprising and and satisfying way. “Satisfying” rarely means “happy” in revenge movies though, so expect to be tense for pretty much the entire time you’re watching the film. Even the happy moments feel tense because you know something else is going to happen, and it’s probably not going to be good for anyone involved. That said, there were moments of levity throughout the movie. Some, especially late in the story, felt a little off to me, but that didn’t detract from my enjoyment. I wouldn’t go so far as to call Promising Young Woman a black comedy as I’ve seen it categorized, but I did find a few moments genuinely funny.
So, 2021 is off to a good start for me theatrically. One (good) movie watched, and only 364 more to go in my restart of my abysmally failed attempt at watching a movie a day for an entire year. If you’re not familiar with my self-imposed movie-watching challenge (and why would you be?), then my rules for A Movie A Day can be found here:http://highspot.cnjradio.com/2020/01/04/a-movie-a-day/
I’m going to make another attempt at the challenge, because why not? I’ll complete it one of these years, surely.
