Three Films Make A Post: If you use it, you'll lose it...

Porno (2019): A handful of teenagers alone at night in the cinema of their evangelically Christian dominated town accidentally summon up a succubus. A teeny bit of nudity, some penis shots, and gore ensue. As do some moments when the film nearly turns into a more complicated discussion about the sort of Christianity these people have grown into, only to get distracted by jokes about the same thing, penises and gore again. Which is perfectly alright for what it is, director Keola Racela having a nice feel this sort of thing, as well as for friendly nods towards the Italian style of horror.

The Devil and Daniel Johnston (2005): Jeff Feuerzeig’s documentary about the late great, haunted and sad Daniel Johnston is certainly one of the great documentaries about music and mental illness, clearly coming from a position of love towards its subject, but never trying to pave over complications nor the very bad stuff. It’s also never just pandering to the romantic idea of the troubled genius, looking for humanity instead of grand gestures. If you love people with mental illness or have problems there yourself, the film may hit very close to home and watching this can hit you like a hammer, not because the film is going for cheap effects but because it absolutely refuses to look down.

The Rhythm Section (2020): Reed Morano’s thriller about revenge, the spy business and the problems with guilt and alienation these things bring with them doesn’t seem to be terribly well-loved. I, perfectly willing to overlook some plot contrivances as I am, found myself rather happy with the film. It certainly features a fine lead performance by Blake Lively, who simply plays through some of the films sillier moments as if they were perfectly natural, and adds a lot of little naturalistic touches to make a very typical character arc feel more human and personal. Morano for his part has an effective way to put ideas about guilt and how to lose it (and how not) into plot and action, keeping the focus tight on the elements he (correctly) deems most important to the material without getting distracted in flashbacks.


Admittedly, thematically, little of what is going on in the film and with its characters should be news to anyone watching genre movies at all, but an old story told well is a perfectly good thing too.

In short: The Shallows (2016)

Taking a – perhaps permanent – break from her study of medicine, Nancy (Blake Lively) travels to a secluded, hidden beach in Mexico to come to terms with the cancer death of her mother. In her mind, her mother and the beach where Mom must have had a particularly transcendent time on a holiday when she was Nancy’s age, are entwined, so Nancy seems to hope to feel nearer to her mother and be able to say goodbye. Nancy is also going to surf there.

Alas, our heroine has chosen a very bad time to come to this particular beach, for a (obviously hyper-intelligent) killer shark has chosen the neighbouring stretch of ocean as his private feeding grounds. So soon, Nancy finds herself with a nasty leg wound, without a phone or anyone who will miss her soon enough for it to matter, stranded on a bunch of rocks, besieged by a shark that is clearly as evil yet more intelligent than your usual politician and willing to wait and lay traps like a killer in a slasher movie.

The Shallows is very much a typical Jaume Collet-Serra film (well, ignoring the absence of Liam Neeson), which is to say, a film that takes a script that is technically sound but also absolutely preposterous and turns it into genre movie gold by the sheer power of good filmmaking. Collet-Serra is one of the least lazy filmmakers imaginable, seemingly always trying to find some way to make any given scene more dramatic, or more beautiful, or more exciting through technical mastery and visual imagination. If I sound as if I’m laying it on a little thick here, just look, really look, at basically every film the guy has ever made, watch how he always seems to make directorial choices that are at once right for any given scene and also interesting in all the right ways, giving everything a flourish that suggests personal involvement when making films that are by all rights meant to be streaming fodder neither filmmaker nor audience is supposed to care all that much about. If anyone’s ever looking to declare an overlooked post-00s genre movie auteur: here’s your guy.


In The Shallows, Collet-Serra uses his immense visual powers to emphasise Nancy’s isolation, while escalating the tension relentlessly (and beautifully), or taking a bit of time for some picture postcard beach and surfing footage meant as effective contrast to the danger to life and limb of our heroine. He generally treats the script’s more dubious ideas with such a seriousness and verve that I only noticed how preposterous the shark’s behaviour was after watching the film. Lively’s performance is very fine too; there’s no moment where she doesn’t hold up to the film’s focus on her, and her portrayal of determination is exactly the note the film needs to work. If that’s still not enough (either for you to be convinced or to think I’ve got the worst taste), The Shallows also features some excellent seagull acting.