Vampires, Assassins, and Romantic Angst by the Seaside: Takoma Reviews

Whoa.

So, I think you really hit the nail on the head of what I was trying to think was bothering me so much but couldn't quite find the words, that it has an insulting lack of faith in the viewers' intelligence. It all felt so spoon-fed. It probably would have been half as long if they weren't holding the audience's hand to walk them through every idea.
I guess this was why I reacted so negatively to the Skeptic because he was just there to make everything else as easy as possible for the audience. "I'm going to ask all your skeptical questions about the central idea for you and be really big and obvious about it too, so you know we're really addressing that."
And yeah, the way the thing that they pretty much tell you in the first, totally expository, segment of the movie, which essentially amounted to a Star Wars crawl, was later revealed to be the big twist... I think I felt like, "Hey, did you guys read this script? Like, just proof-read it once to make sure it was all hunky-dory?"
And yeah again, how much did Jack's backstory/reveal really add to the movie? Would it not have been a better movie if none of that was actually there and the film just sat on the ostensible A-plot?
Yeah, I think you've unearthed my objections that I couldn't quite put my finger on.

Late Night With the Devil is a film I enjoyed some of, and became one of those "ignore sections of this movie" horror films, as so many of them often end up being. What can I say - sometimes I really like parts of some films a lot. It really shouldn't have opened with that long prologue and the whole "remember when this crazy thing happened?" narration doesn't make sense. If it was real it would probably have been one of the defining moments of humanity ala aliens arriving - not some wacky live TV moment that's getting a re-airing. I'm really seeing a lot of movies overexplain and hold the audience's hand these days - I think some filmmakers/producers don't trust us as far as paying attention goes anymore. To grab an audience as large as possible, they play to the absolute simplest of their target to be sure everyone is getting it.

I'm not saying this was the case here (I simply don't know), but sometimes a filmmaker really gets shafted by the producers when they take a look at what they're paying for and then demand it "make more sense" to them. I can see the great movie that's lurking within Late Night With the Devil's missteps and misfortunes.

__________________

It's a fun movie, the audience reaction is one of the best of any of the horror movies that have been released theatrically this year.

Yeah, this all resonates with me.
In fact, I am about to cover a movie, probably tomorrow, that I am going to absolutely shred. But I realized as I thought about it last night, if someone had just told me before I watched it, "Hey, the plot/script is almost unbearable, you're going in for the set-pieces," I might have been able to appreciate it on some level. As you say, "ignore sections of this movie".
I know that I do that for some movies I like so I do wonder how much of it is how this one strikes you or even what mood you're in when you see it.

I agree with all this. The missteps are almost all of a kind; they feel tacked on, and they feel as if they were done out of fear that the audience wouldn't follow something, which is a shame. I enjoyed it anyway but definitely think there's a way better version out there in the multiverse, or even just in the edit.

Lots of ways they could've handwaved the "why wasn't this a huge deal?" stuff, too. Most of the tapes have been destroyed, people thought it was a stunt, blah blah. Low-hanging fruit that they decided not to pick (or were pressured not to pick, as some of you are reasonably speculating).

I don't know. I think that the problem here is actually main character syndrome.

Jack brings on a guest and .

I mean . . . come on. And that framing feels like it IS baked into the original concept of the film. The bookends are really bad, but even without them, I don't know.

Shockingly, I read that one of the people who worked on the script is my beloved Joel Anderson, the writer/director of Lake Mungo which is a MASTERCLASS in how to tell the audience just enough for us to understand and leave other things to infer.

I can also see the great movie hiding in there, but there are just too many times that it puts its foot wrong. In fact, I think that there's an amazing horror comedy where

And I completely agree with Wooley that the character of the skeptic is poorly written. In fact, too many of the characters are not people so much as mechanisms to enable exposition.

I have only ever heard about 'main character syndrome' being used to describe annoying maladjusted people in real life, so your use of the term in relation to a movie just blew my mind. I think you just invented an entirely new definition for the term.

Here's a good example of my selective blocking out and hopeful reasoning that I apply to movies I really want to love but are problematic. I always assumed (in the universe movies are set in anyway) that demons are pretty much all-knowing - of what happens in the real world and in someone's mind. I didn't think the demon invited onto Jack's show knew him from before (and I am NOT saying this is what the makers of the film meant) despite saying so - but that as a demon he wanted to break Jack into a million pieces and used all of his fears against him. If that means pretending to be the powerful demon (which may or may not exist) that Jack's cult prays to - so be it. I mean, Jack proves that he's never encountered the supernatural before by his reactions during the movie. I took the end to be complete invention by the demon to convince Jack all of what it's saying is true - and that the real truth may have been what Jack thought he may have done.

BUT.... before you come back at me with evidence from the movie that this isn't the case, I just wanted to share with you the mental gymnastics I sometimes do to turn a disappointment into something that's not packed with corn. I'll ignore that bit of evidence. If demons were real, they'd convince you that all of your worst fears are true and tell you that they were with you during your weakest moments. If the move turns around and says "Nuh-uh, it was all literally as we presented it!" I'm putting my fingers in my ears and tell the movie I can't hear it.

Maybe Late Night With the Devil was even worse before he did a few fixes. Or maybe he's sat in his office right now thinking "They ignored and edited out all of my fixes!"

The balance tipped in your case - there was no redeeming this one. My biggest problem was this being presented as some kind of 'found footage' real-life broadcast, because it goes so far into 2001 : A Space Odyssey territory that it's impossible to take it as a real-life broadcast. It would be locked in a vault - and talked about for all eternity. Denied, and written about and there would have been countless documentaries made and it would have a specific name - I think this would have been better as a mockumentary or something, with clips from the show and a re-enactment of how people remember it ended because "the real footage has vanished." I can't buy it as found footage once things get to a certain level of insanity. I'd have scrapped that whole angle - it doesn't work.

Lose the bookends, include some interviews (of people long after the fact - "Jack disappeared. We never did find out where he went..."), feed in clips of the show - do a re-enactment of the ending and speculate - make it more of a mystery like we like it. A totally different movie I think, but the body of the show itself regarding the lead-up to where it goes off the rails would be the same. I'd like to see that.

I couldn't think of another term. (And I know "main character syndrome" refers to people in real life who always want to center themselves in any situation). I find that crime movies often suffer from this as well: it turns out that, by a huge coincidence, the detective has a connection to the killer. Just . . . blah most of the time.

That's fine. I'll twist myself in pretzels every now and then to make a movie more enjoyable.

Agreed. A fake documentary, which would heavily revolve around the "archive footage" of the show, would have been a much better way to go.

Fantasy Island, 2020

An airplane lands at a remote island, and the guests who disembark are welcomed by Mr. Rourke (Michael Pena) who tells them that the rumors are true: on this island, they will each get to enjoy one fantasy. But as the fantasies begin, it soon becomes clear that something malevolent is happening on the island, and this could be a classic case of “be careful what you wish for.”

A likable cast and a fun premise elevate a rocky, overlong story.

I did not grow up in the right era to be someone who watched the original TV show on which this film is based. The general premise, however, is more than familiar to any fantasy/horror fan: if you get a chance to wish for something that seems too good to be true, look out!

It doesn’t ultimately feel like the movie makes the best use of its premise. There were some plot turns that surprised me in really pleasant ways, including a late-act reveal that I did not see coming at all. That said, those moments don’t totally feel like they justify the movie’s 100-plus minutes of runtime. After about the first half hour, I found myself repeatedly checking how much time was left, and my reaction was usually “Really? But how?!”. I think that there could have easily been 25 or so minutes ejected from the film and it would still have maintained its story flow.

The other problem with the film is that it doesn’t quite nail the “wish gone wrong” trope in terms of pacing. In a really great film with such a premise, it takes a while for the wrongness of the situation to settle in. But in this film, it’s often just a matter of minutes and there’s no time to enjoy the dawning realization that it’s all turned sideways.

There is one really great subplot in the film, which is the story following Gwen (Maggie Q). Gwen wants to live out the fantasy of undoing a regret: having turned down her boyfriend when he proposed marriage. Gwen is shocked---delighted, then disturbed---when she realizes that it’s all real and not roleplay, and her emotional journey isn’t just the obvious plot point of “Oh, she wished she was married with a kid, but that’s not all it’s cracked up to be!”. Instead, Gwen is troubled by the idea that there’s another regret she’d rather rectify, one that’s at the heart of her long-standing depression and feelings of guilt.

The other subplots are okay, but just don’t land as well. Goofy brothers JD and Brax (Ryan Hansen and Jimmy O Yang) want to live the sweet life, in a very college-aged conception of that term. Patrick (Austin Stowell) wants to experience life as a soldier, to feel a closer connection to the military father he lost as a child. And Melanie (Lucy Hale) wants to exact some sweet, sweet revenge on the classmate who tormented her as a child. The main problem with all of these subplots is that they play out in disjoint, poorly paced ways. Melanie’s horror as she realizes that the real bully, Sloane (Portia Doubleday), has been kidnapped and is about to be horribly tortured is a good moment. And Doubleday, as the effortlessly cruel Sloane, is a great mid-film addition to the cast of characters. (Looking over Melanie’s outfit she sympathizes, “Oh my god, did they make you wear that?!”).

Again, the actors themselves bring a lot to the film, and make things work far better than the writing deserves. Pena has good comedic timing as their host. Hansen and Yang have a cute chemistry as brothers who love each other but are a bit co-dependent. Hale and Doubleday generate some good chemistry as enemies who end up needing each other to survive. Maggie Q is the standout here, but she also benefits from the best writing and character development. Also, Michael Rooker is on hand as a man running around the island wielding a machete. I didn’t totally understand his character, but, you know, Michael Rooker with a machete. We don’t ask much more.

I’m kind of torn on whether I’d recommend this film. I did enjoy it, but it was also a movie that really dragged at points, and I don’t think I’d watch it again. I think it helps that I have such affection for many of the cast. (If you’ve never seen Kristen Bell and Ryan Hansen reviewing kids’ products together, during which Bell rides Hansen like he’s a pony----highly recommend).

Maybe a good choice when you want something horror but also a bit mindless?

As Above, So Below, 2014

Scarlett (Perdita Weeks) is an archaeologist who is obsessed with alchemy and with pursuing the legendary Sorcerer’s Stone. After a risky foray into an Iranian cave system, Scarlett is certain that she can find the Stone in the Catacombs beneath Paris. With her former boyfriend and fellow scholar George (Ben Feldman) and cameraman Benji (Edwin Hodge) in tow, Scarlett enlists local guide Papillon (Francois Civil) to take them deep under the city. But the deeper they go, the more it seems that some force is working against the explorers.

Compelling and spooky, this is a solid horror adventure.

The most important thing to put in this review is: a big sorry to ApexPredator, who has been championing this film for YEARS, to which I’ve always responded in my mind “Yeah, but found footage . . . “.

And to get this out of the way: no, this movie did not need to be found footage. There’s just no reason for it, and it creates a handful of suspension of disbelief issues, like having to show Benji say things like “Hey everyone, I put little cameras on your headlamps!” or moments where the footage is just too good, especially when things go off the rails. That said, for the most part the conceit is minimally intrusive, and I chose to just ignore the idea that this was being filmed by the characters themselves.

And really, aside from not needing the found footage hook, I really had very few complaints about this film. It does dip into a few tropes that are very tired. (Do we really need another woman main character whose dead dad was a scientist?), but for the most part what it’s doing is very enjoyable. (Okay, I do have to be petty here and call out one of my least favorite movie things: if a poem is written in one language and translated to another, it will not perfectly rhyme! What are you doing, movie?!).

There’s just a lot to praise here, and while nothing really astounded me, it’s just really well done.

To begin with, the setting obviously will get to anyone who is the least bit claustrophobic. As someone who doesn’t enjoy people being trapped in small places, I thought that the film did a good job of conveying that trapped feeling, without going to that well over and over again. Just the sense that they are getting deeper and deeper in the ground is enough to generate an overriding sense of doom.

The mystery itself, both the finding of the stone and escaping the catacombs, is very interesting. There’s a nice mix of spooky action sequences and sequences where the characters are doing science-y things. It’s a very involving dynamic and it keeps the film from feeling redundant. Even if it’s a bit goofy at times, it’s always fun watching people come up against a puzzle and have to figure it out, such as when the characters have to consider how many planets were known at the time that a certain riddle was written.

I also have to note that, while I found Scarlett a bit annoying at first, she quickly grew on me as a character. The other characters are also pretty well written, and while I had pegged certain people as obvious cannon fodder, the movie managed to surprise me on this front.

Finally, without getting too much into spoiler territory, I had thought that there would be a video-game feeling to this film, just watching characters get picked off for the whole runtime. Part of my hesitation with this movie was that it would be a depressing slog of murder set-pieces. Again, the film managed to surprise me here, with the focus of the final act leaning much more into character growth than any sense of approaching a “final boss” monster in the depths.

If, like me, you’ve been put off by the found footage aspect or by the sense of it being a Descent knock-off, I’d encourage you to give it a chance. This was fun and scary without being overly depressing or formulaic.

Death on the Beach, 1991

David (Andres Bonfiglio) returns home from boarding school where a teacher has just been brutally murdered. His mother, Lorena (Sonia Infante), is in serious denial about David being gay, and attempts repeatedly to set him up with beautiful young women. Lorena’s lover, Paul (Rodolfo de Anda), wanting to be the sole recipient of Lorena’s affections, gets into a subdued power struggle with David. All the while, lovely young people are meeting their demise at David’s hands, complicating the fraught dynamics between David, Lorena, and Paul.

This unabashedly queer horror melodrama makes a heck of an impression as it embraces and subverts traditional slasher tropes.

There comes a point when, for the millionth time, you’re watching a young woman in a horror movie soaping up her chest and you just wonder how a certain demographic of horror fans would react to watching male characters traipse around half-naked, taking ill-timed showers, and having cameras pointed at them at angles to highlight certain assets.

Well, wonder no more, because this film applies the male gaze to male bodies in a way unlike any horror movie I’ve ever seen and it is absolutely fascinating. And what adds to the fascination is the fact that this is not some case of a movie where the queer content is subtext. It is very much text and the driver of the violence.

It doesn’t take long for us to understand the rhythm of the film. David is gay, totally uninterested in doing more than the minimum to conceal that fact from his mother, and deeply angry about a sexual assault in his past that has now twisted anger and violence into his sense of his sexuality.

Seen from one angle, there’s something deeply problematic about a character asserting that they discovered that they are gay because they were raped and they liked it. But seen from another angle, it’s a fact that some people experience pleasure during assault---a physical response disconnected from the mental anguish of the experience---and that this can be incredibly haunting. It’s hard enough to be gay for David---something that based on his mother’s reaction, could cost him his inheritance and her affections---but it’s also something that is bundled up with a frightening, humiliating, and traumatic experience. Significantly, when we are shown some of this assault in the flashback, it is only David’s fear and the terrible power imbalance that is evoked. We see none of the pleasure that David speaks of, only a frightened, overpowered teenager.

But while there are some intense themes underlying the film, there is also plenty of melodrama and borderline comedic aspects to it. Lorena is a wonderfully over the top character, hiring sexy “secretaries” whose not-so-secret mission is to seduce David. Her denial of David’s involvement in the many, many murders turns into a dark running joke. David is an unrepentant murderer, but he is also surrounded by people who are willing to take advantage of him, or others, just for a quick buck. In one scene, Paul seems to actually be sensitive to Dabid’s predicament, before we realize that it’s all an act to get David to move away from home and out of Lorena’s orbit.

David is just a very interesting character. On one hand, he’s this rich kid who literally gets away with murder because he has a rich mom and powerful step-dad to magically turn killings into “unfortunate accidents”. And while some of the people he targets have done him wrong, others are blameless. But he’s also something of a tragic figure, because without the abuses and manipulations of people in power over him, he could have just been this goofy guy who messed around on the beach with a bunch of other goofy guys in speedos.

One part of me wishes that the horror component was a little stronger here. The kills definitely lack pizazz. At the same time, there’s something a bit funny and a bit horrifying about the way that David will just push someone out the window and turn around with a self-satisfied smile on his face. He’s living in a totally different realm.

As alluded to at the beginning of this write-up, the blunt eroticism is part of what makes this such an interesting watch. Director Enrique Vadillo was apparently involved in making soft-core films, and the film is loaded with steamy interludes, whether that’s Lorena and Paul making love in the swimming pool or David getting sweaty with one of the many sexy house servants. (One incredible aspect of the film is that Lorena basically gifts David with a mute hunk as a companion. David is constantly remarking “Good thing you can’t understand me or talk!” Like, what?!). But while there’s nudity from both genders, the erotic gaze is far more interested in David and his various conquests. There’s one shot of David, in a very distinct pose on a bed, that leaves zero doubt that the movie was filmed by a queer man (and one who is well-versed in adult film).

This is a decent horror film that’s given an extra jolt of interest from its unique anti-hero and the incredibly uncommon overt queer lens.

I remember enjoying As Above, So Below one hell of a lot when I watched it a number of years ago. It was a library loaner, during a period when a lot of the new movies I was watching came from my local public library. I don't recall everything but I think I kept getting a feeling that the characters were venturing so far into the catacombs they were exploring that it seemed like going back the way they came was no longer an option - always a scary thought.

I'd highly recommend the Ted Chiang short story "Tower of Babylon" to you. Go in knowing nothing about it, if possible.