Three Films Make A Post: No Rules. No Law. No Order.

American Animals (2018): Bart Layton’s film about four young guys committing a book heist (one of the most heinous crimes imaginable) is “based on a true story” in some kind of post-ironic way, regularly cutting away to the actual characters the film’s characters are based on to pretend to say something profound about the construction of truth; and clearly, you need to use as many distancing stylistic choices as possible for talking about truth. Too bad the film never actually gets around to saying something profound. Its philosophy rather belongs to the sound bite world where nothing that can’t be said in a single sentence is of interest. Of course, that’s no way to actually understand human beings, so the characters stay lifeless types, something that’s further exacerbated by the film’s indecision if it wants to mock its characters or honestly explore them, ending up doing neither effectively. And of course it fails at being an effective heist movie thanks to all the tiresome distancing and look-at-me filmmaking.

The Changeover (2017): As regular readers know, my tolerance for YA movies is relatively low, me not at all being in the assumed audience of the genre. And I do indeed find the YA romance parts of this film to be its greatest weakness as well as not actually belonging into what is otherwise an intriguing, stylish and increasingly dream-like tale of young adult female empowerment through magic. Young Laura Chant (Erana James) has, as the genre demands, some growing up and learning about herself to do when her little brother is threatened by a spiritual parasite (portrayed by the great Timothy Spall in a performance to make one’s skin crawl). She herself is a sensitive, but she just might have to go through a ritual of spiritual change to become a witch to protect her family. Which sounds really rather typical, but the director duo of Miranda Harcourt and Stuart McKenzie is very good at turning the typical specific, drawing Laura’s social world, the drab place she grows up in, the way loss feels to a young person with a realist hand until the supernatural increasingly slides in, colours, perceptions, and the editing rhythm changing in kind.

The Lost Boys (1987): Talking about teenagers, everyone’s third or fourth favourite vampire movie of the 80s may very well be Joel Schumacher’s best film. Here, he’s cutting down on his excesses so much, what’s left of them does actually turn into the style of this Peter Pan-influenced teenage vampire tale. And stylish the thing certainly is, in a way that perfectly encapsulates 1987, for better rather than worse. It’s not quite Fright Night or Fright Night 2 as a comedy but most of the jokes sit, and, particularly important, Schumacher knows when to cut it with the jokes and turn things properly menacing.


There’s a really great sense of mood here, clearly aiming to turn the fictional California coastal town the film takes place in into a kind of 80s version of a Gothic horror stricken town from Universal backlot Europe; it’s a clever bit of modernisation of old tropes particularly because Schumacher finds just the right kinds of over the top aesthetics to evoke exactly the right mood. Generally, the film convinces through its world building, making an improbable place feel curiously plausible.