Last weekend saw the release of a new M. Night Shyamalan joint, Knock at the Cabin, which I’ll admit I couldn’t force myself to see because a.) it’s M. Night Shyamalan, b.) I did see his godawful last, Old (see our review here), and c.) I didn’t much like the novel this one is based on (Paul Tremblay’s The Cabin at the End of the World), a labored story conceit that even a much better director might not be able to salvage.
Still, it did well enough to top the box-office—finally knocking Avatar 2 out of the #1 slot—and might have piqued your interest in more horror and suspense. There’s plenty in that general realm getting released to theaters and/or home formats this week, even if none quite rival Knock in terms of gay protagonists in a home invasion/apocalyptic threat scenario. (There are, however, lesbian or bisexual protagonists in a couple of them, see below.) All nine of them represent just a sampling of early February’s fresh screen horror—a genre that seems to grow more popular every year.
Though you might think Rosemary’s Baby said enough on the matter, pregnancy horror has been on the rise of late, suggesting a weird resurgence of reactionary squeamishness towards the body and its transformations. Already playing the Opera Plaza and Oakland’s Piedmont is Bess Wohl’s Baby Ruby, in which an upstate NY lifestyle blogger (Noemie Merlant from Tár and Portrait of a Lady on Fire) finds herself on thin mental-health ice before and particularly after giving birth to her first child.
Given that she is surrounded by intelligent adults, medical professionals, et al., it’s absurd that the movie is nearly over before anyone raises the issue (postpartum psychosis) any knowledgable viewer might’ve guessed at all along. Hyperbolic, with too many red-herring narrative strategies trying to convince us something more sinister than clinical is going on here, Baby Ruby intrigues, but proves more effortful than effective.
Somewhat more successful if still conceptually muddy is Michelle Garza Cervera’s Mexican Huesera: The Bone Woman, which begins playing some Alamo Drafthouse dates as of Sat/11, and is available from On Demand platforms Feb. 16. Young wife Valeria (Natalia Solian) has been trying to have a baby for some time, but when she gets good news, has more mixed feelings than anticipated.
Is it because she still pines for the female lover and less-conventional life she left behind, which we glimpse in flashbacks? Or is some malevolent entity at play, forcing on her visions and actions that make her seem crazy to others? Huesera plays it both ways, to somewhat confused ultimate impact. Nonetheless, it’s visually and sonically interesting, with Cervera making a confident feature directorial bow.
A lesbian relationship is even more central to Gabriel Bier Gislason’s Attachment, available on streaming platform Shudder as of Thu/9. Danish former child star Maja (Josephine Park) and British grad student Leah (Ellie Kendrick) meet-cute at a bookstore, almost instantly becoming a couple. They soon land back at Leah’s North London flat in a Hasidic neighborhood, where Maja assumes the hostility of her new partner’s widowed mother Chana (Sofie Grabol) is due to an Orthodox religious conservative’s homophobia.
But it turns out there’s something else going on here: Mom is in fact trying to protect Leah, and her new “friend,” from a malevolent spirit that’s used her daughter as its host since childhood. Yes, it’s a dybbuk movie—though it takes a very long time to admit as much. The performances and character writing have more depth than usual for such things, though one wishes Gislason’s tale were less sluggish of pace, or grudging of thrills.
Still, it’s easier to take seriously than the humorless Consecration, opening this Fri/10 in limited (mostly suburban) theaters with a presumed eventual Shudder launch date. Grace (Jena Malone) travels to a remote Scottish coastal nunnery after her priest brother dies nearby, an apparent suicide. But she doubts that verdict, not just because the nuns act so suspiciously, but also because she keeps getting visions of a type she’s had since their nightmarish shared childhood.
Reminiscent of the more ponderous Catholic occult thrillers that followed in the wake of the original Exorcist and Omen—with none of the verve of that same era’s more shameless nunsploitation opuses—this is one somber, silly pile of pseudo-theological hoodoo. On the plus side, it’s very handsomely shot in widescreen by cinematographers Rob Hart and Shaun Mone on scenic locations. But it’s a minus for writer-director Christopher Smith, who can do a lot better (notably 2006’s Severance), as well as for Dame Janet Suzman, a great UK actress who started big onscreen (Oscar-nominated as the doomed Tsarina in 1971’s epic Nicholas and Alexandra) but chose to focus on the stage. Why, at age 84, she chose to make a glowering Mother Superior her first film role in a decade is anyone’s guess.
Religion is off the menu in two horror comedies serving up supple youth to be carved slasher-style. In Jeff Ryan’s Mean Spirited, “The Amazing Andy” (Will Madden), a YouTube prankster-bully with delusions of Jackass-style celebrity, travels with his crew to visit a childhood pal (Ryan) who—much to Andy’s resentment—really has become a Hollywood hotshot. Their not-so-good-natured competitiveness is eventually less important, however, than the evil force that one by one assumes possession of our obnoxious hero’s cohorts. It’s hard to make fun of targets as obvious as the ones here (Internet culture is narcissistic and shallow? mein gott!!), and beyond living up to its title, Mean Spirited disappoints as both an unfunny satire and unscary thriller. It’s available On Demand as of Tues/7.
Not much better is She Came From the Woods, which starts out like a feebler version of spoofy Wet Hot American Summer, then midway starts taking itself more seriously without actually delivering much in the way of suspense or jolts. The usual assortment of counselor stereotypes remain behind at Camp Briarbrook once the kids have been sent home at summer’s end. Foolishly, they invoke the spirit of “Nurse Agatha,” who purportedly once ran amuck here. Needless to say, they will soon regret that impulse.
Erik Bloomquist’s film (which expands his 2017 short of the same name) is reasonably slick and energetic, but once again, it lacks inspiration in either humor or attempted scares. For a genuinely clever send up of “bloody summer camp” slashers, see 2015’s The Final Girls instead. She Came opens in limited theaters this Fri/10, locations available here.
If you’d prefer a plain old creature feature, there’s Brad Rego’s Cryptid, which played SF’s Another Hole in the Head festival a couple months ago, and comes out on DVD from Screen Media this Tue/7. Out-of-favor freelance journalist Max (Nicholas Baroudi) sniffs a possible career-salvaging story in a mystery death on a Maine country road. Roping in reluctant photographer Harriet (Ellen Adair), he investigates, eventually suspecting something considerably more monstrous than the “bear attack” scenario local police have advanced.
Enterprising Cryptid has its plusses, though they’re compromised by a smirking-asshole protagonist who’s more irritating than necessary, as well as some significant pacing issues. This movie absolutely does not need to be almost two hours long, with characters stopping to yak even at the lethal climax. It’s worth a look on a slow evening—though it won’t make it pass much faster.
Speaking of obnoxious people talking way too much, Australia sends its regards via Line of Fire, debuting on US Digital and On Demand platforms Tue/7. Police officer Samantha (Nadine Gardner) is unlucky enough to be on-site already when a school shooting breaks out—worse, she witnesses her own teenage son get killed. Yet because she did not stop the shooter (or even fire her gun) before 20 people were shot, some parents and observers blame her for the death toll.
As if that weren’t bad enough, former journalist turned housewife blogger Jamie (Samantha Tolj) sees this controversy as her ticket back to the top of the media pile, mercilessly exploiting sentiments against Sam in the hopes of gaining an exclusive interview. She does not reckon with the possibility that in overplaying her hand, she may court brutal payback from someone who’s not just a grieving mother and policewoman, but also ex-military with PTSDs upon PTSDs.
it’s a decent premise, but director Scott Major and writer Christopher Gist render things in simplistic terms—Jamie is a sneering caricature, Sam a hyperventilating crazy woman—that might have worked nonetheless if the tension weren’t so hobbled by gratuitous dialogue (even lengthy monologues). It’s a clumsy movie, simultaneously overwrought and plodding.
For something completely different—by any standard—there is Robbie Banfitch’s The Outwaters, which starts out as a bigger challenge to viewer patience than any of the above movies. Posited as “found footage,” it offers the purported surviving evidence of an excursion by two brothers (Banfitch, Scott Schamell), a singer (Michelle May) and her friend (Angela Basolis) into the Mohave Desert, to have fun and also make a music video. They take their time getting there, horsing around a lot for the camera. All of which is exactly as interesting as any stranger’s vacation videos—i.e., not interesting in the least. (I also thought I’d lose my lunch if I had to hear May solemnly warbling a Cowboy Junkies-esque rendition of “Hush-A-Bye Baby” one more time.)
This goes on for nearly an hour. But finally some shit does start hitting the fan, presaged by mild disturbances that might be explained by the kind of military ops that are frequently carried out on, over, or near remote desert areas. it turns out something quite “else” is going on, although I couldn’t tell you just what. (The best interpretation I’ve seen is a Dread Central reviewer’s surmise that the ensuing nightmare “imagines what happens to the campers that disappear in films such as The Blair Witch Project…a disturbing descent into some sort of interdimensional hell.”) There’s a lot of screaming, glistening blood that never seems to dry, tentacles, snakes, time ellipses, general ick, confusion, and torment. It’s a bit like the climactic “ultimate trip” in 2001, only this one is bound not towards cosmic Heaven but its horrific inverse.
There is no question that The Outwaters, which opens in limited theaters this Fri/10 (locations here), would be much better if it were much shorter. Even when it does get where it’s going, many viewers will be exasperated by the often unintelligible imagery, in which pitch-black night is illuminated only by a single flashlight. (Even the concurrent Skinamarink is more visually forthcoming by contrast.) But at least it’s headed somewhere you haven’t exactly been before—something one can say about very few movies.
