Three Films Make A Post: Money, Madness, Murder.

The Haunting of Sarah Hardy (1989): If you’re in the right mood, this thriller by Jerry London produced for the USA Network featuring Sela Ward, Morgan Fairchild and Polly Bergen recommends itself by a particularly preposterous plot construction. At first, it’s very much gaslighting business by the numbers, but soon enough, the film spends time in James M. Cain land and even does some reverse gaslighting (something too few films do) eventually. If only London’s direction had more of a zing to it, this would probably be either a perfect example of the virtues overwriting can sometimes achieve or a camp masterpiece (if only I liked camp). As it stands, it’s at least less boring a film than it at first appears.

Mortal aka Torden (2020): I’m a big admirer of the films of André Øvredal, but this mix of superhero tropes, vague attempts at religious parable, myth and Brightburn just doesn’t work at all, its different elements never really coming together into a whole once the film starts giving answers to the questions it has come up with in the first act. On the plot level, there’s simply too little of interest happening, Øvredal going through motions of high budget thrill rides instead of actually making a thrilling film, while the film’s more thoughtful elements never really go anywhere. It’s rather poignant that the characters read up on Thor in a children’s book.

Visually, it’s very pretty indeed, but the pacing is much too ponderous for a film with so few actual thoughts, the characters have little to grab one – there’s just a feeling of something important that would make this into an actual film having gone missing somewhere during the production. Worst is an ending that attempts to be a classic 70s downer, but only feels deeply dissatisfying on a narrative level as well as  disconnected to any of the thematic questions the film might have had.

Local Hero (1983): I’ve taken a decade or two of coming around to the charms and qualities of Bill Forsyth’s much loved comedy. It’s not an obvious film to gather as much love as it has, with its nearly complete abandonment of the fish out of water plot after its first act or so, an approach to characters that can feel distant when you haven’t quite understood how subtle and empathetic it rather is, and a sense of humour that’s often plain peculiar.
The picture postcard beautiful shots of Scotland are an obvious attraction, but what really makes this for me is the willingness to meet characters on their own terms, understanding that the good and the bad in people are inextricably intertwined and even (not a thing anyone seems to be willing in the here and now) suggests that you might get along with people who aren’t perfect embodiments of what you want them to be, quietly praising individuality and finding it in everyone.


It’s also a film willing to present and accept a non-perfect solution to character arcs, as well as its so-called plot. And life, one assumes.