Siberia (2018): I’m pretty sure Matthew Ross’s
Siberia was meant to be some sort of neo noir, using its Keanu Reeves
protagonist’s misadventures in shady diamond dealings and cheating in Russia as
a means to show his alienation and probably say something about the US’s
standing in the world right now too. Alas, what we actually get is a film whose
characters are as clichéd as they are uninvolving, and played with little
conviction by a cast that seem to have been provided with little usable
direction. What little there is of a plot moves with all the verve of a dead
snail, lacking any and all interesting detail. Direction-wise, this is a slick,
personality-less concoction that looks pretty but doesn’t create a mood, or a
world for its characters to inhabit, nor does it create much of a point for
anything going on in it, very slowly.
Sequence Break (2017): Equally unsuccessful but at least
more ambitious is this Cronenberg without the philosophy but with arcade
consoles bit by Graham Skipper (whom I know better as an extremely dependable
indie genre movie actor). Stylistically, this really wants to be a Panos
Cosmatos movie – or at least loves the same things about Cronenberg movies
Cosmatos loves – but it never quite manages to create the proper mood of
dream/nightmare/insanity, and is at its heart too friendly and romantic to
really hit the philsophical and aesthetical extremes of its models. It is
borrowing their surfaces instead of their cores and never quite manages to
convince me of its own core.
Blood and Money aka Allagash (2020): Also
dwelling completely in very traditional genre structures, character types and
ideas, John Barr’s movie concerning an old hunter (Tom Berenger) stumbling into
conflict with a brutal gang of robbers in the Allagash is much better at
bringing them to life than this week’s other films. In part, that’s thanks to
Barr’s slow yet focussed direction style, in part thanks to a performance by a
Berenger clearly happy to get a role with a bit of substance his late work isn’t
exactly full of, and in part simply because Barr (who also co-wrote this with
Alan Petherick) knows how to flesh out tropes and connect them to actual
life.
It’s also a film very clear about the utter, existential uselessness of its
characters’ struggles, Berenger making one bad decision after the other in a
mixture of bad habit, bad luck and an ill-understood idea of redemption that’s
going to redeem nobody and improve nothing in the world.
Showing posts with label graham skipper. Show all posts
Showing posts with label graham skipper. Show all posts
Saturday, July 4, 2020
Sunday, January 15, 2017
Beyond the Gates (2016)
Gordon (Graham Skipper) returns to his hometown because his father has
disappeared. It’s not the first time the alcoholic has gone AWOL, but this time,
it seems to have stuck.
So Gordon has to reunite with his brother John (Chase Williamson), who stayed behind when Gordon left town and their father for good, to pack up their father’s house and the obsolete video store he owned. Both brothers have obviously suffered from abuse by their dear dad. As a consequence John as a young-ish man has turned into the sort of charming fuck-up who might soon replace the “charming” with criminal, dead, or drunk, and Gordon has difficulties to not turn into his father, fighting alcoholism and a tendency to violent outbursts. His girlfriend Margot (Brea Grant) is coming to help sort through dad’s baggage too – after all, that’s what she’s been doing for Gordon for some time now, it seems.
Going through their father’s old office, John and Gordon find that most 80s of things – a VCR board game. There’s something strange going on with the game, though: the somewhat sinister woman (Barbara Crampton) on the game’s video tape tells the brothers the game is the only way to save their father’s soul, and might react to what’s going on around it, which is disquieting enough, but soon, board game and reality start to mix in sometimes bloody ways, turning the lives of the brothers and Margot into a fight for their life, limb and perhaps their very souls.
Jackson Stewart’s Beyond the Door is a lovely bit of indie horror cinema, paying homage to the aesthetics of certain parts of 80s horror like a lot of films do these days, yet without falling into the trap of becoming too much of a copy of the style. Well, I’m not sure the film could actually afford to become one – this is after all a film where stepping into a different dimension happens via the movie magic of blue and purple lighting and some dry ice fog – but it is clear that Stewart knows what he’s doing in looks and tone.
I imagine some viewers will be frustrated by the film’s slow beginning and the rather budget conscious way it builds up to its climax, but I found myself charmed by the character interactions between the leads, appreciated how lacking in melodrama the treatment of the brothers’ backstories was, and generally found myself interested in these characters as people to observe for a movie’s length. Stewart is a pleasantly economic director of these character interactions, never letting things become too concise but also not falling into the trap of confusing the creation of believable people with long, rambling and pointless dialogue scenes. The film’s central metaphor on the other hand is as on the nose as they get, but that works out fine in a film taking its time for its characters as this one does.
Stewart treats the supernatural elements (Jumanji light – but with gore?) equally well, obviously putting all of his tiny budget on screen in a way that mostly works fine, demonstrates imagination and never descends into smugness. There’s fan enthusiasm even for the hokier parts of the horror genre that still doesn’t get in the way of the film’s own story, some pleasant macabre details, a smidgen of wonderfully gloopy gore, and Barbara Crampton glorying in her new role as queen of indie horror character actresses with some classy, controlled scenery chewing. Everything going on is rather small scale, of course, yet Stewart works so well with what he’s got, I enjoyed Beyond the Gates thoroughly, with a pleased grin pasted on my cynical old mug for much of its running time.
So Gordon has to reunite with his brother John (Chase Williamson), who stayed behind when Gordon left town and their father for good, to pack up their father’s house and the obsolete video store he owned. Both brothers have obviously suffered from abuse by their dear dad. As a consequence John as a young-ish man has turned into the sort of charming fuck-up who might soon replace the “charming” with criminal, dead, or drunk, and Gordon has difficulties to not turn into his father, fighting alcoholism and a tendency to violent outbursts. His girlfriend Margot (Brea Grant) is coming to help sort through dad’s baggage too – after all, that’s what she’s been doing for Gordon for some time now, it seems.
Going through their father’s old office, John and Gordon find that most 80s of things – a VCR board game. There’s something strange going on with the game, though: the somewhat sinister woman (Barbara Crampton) on the game’s video tape tells the brothers the game is the only way to save their father’s soul, and might react to what’s going on around it, which is disquieting enough, but soon, board game and reality start to mix in sometimes bloody ways, turning the lives of the brothers and Margot into a fight for their life, limb and perhaps their very souls.
Jackson Stewart’s Beyond the Door is a lovely bit of indie horror cinema, paying homage to the aesthetics of certain parts of 80s horror like a lot of films do these days, yet without falling into the trap of becoming too much of a copy of the style. Well, I’m not sure the film could actually afford to become one – this is after all a film where stepping into a different dimension happens via the movie magic of blue and purple lighting and some dry ice fog – but it is clear that Stewart knows what he’s doing in looks and tone.
I imagine some viewers will be frustrated by the film’s slow beginning and the rather budget conscious way it builds up to its climax, but I found myself charmed by the character interactions between the leads, appreciated how lacking in melodrama the treatment of the brothers’ backstories was, and generally found myself interested in these characters as people to observe for a movie’s length. Stewart is a pleasantly economic director of these character interactions, never letting things become too concise but also not falling into the trap of confusing the creation of believable people with long, rambling and pointless dialogue scenes. The film’s central metaphor on the other hand is as on the nose as they get, but that works out fine in a film taking its time for its characters as this one does.
Stewart treats the supernatural elements (Jumanji light – but with gore?) equally well, obviously putting all of his tiny budget on screen in a way that mostly works fine, demonstrates imagination and never descends into smugness. There’s fan enthusiasm even for the hokier parts of the horror genre that still doesn’t get in the way of the film’s own story, some pleasant macabre details, a smidgen of wonderfully gloopy gore, and Barbara Crampton glorying in her new role as queen of indie horror character actresses with some classy, controlled scenery chewing. Everything going on is rather small scale, of course, yet Stewart works so well with what he’s got, I enjoyed Beyond the Gates thoroughly, with a pleased grin pasted on my cynical old mug for much of its running time.
Saturday, September 3, 2016
In short: The Mind’s Eye (2015)
It’s 1990, and Scanners-style psychokinetic powers are a thing in
the population. Rambling psychokinetic Zack (Graham Skipper) is lured into the
private, secret, and deeply dubious psi research program of Dr. Slovak (John
Speredakos, increasingly – and rather wonderfully - chewing the scenery) with
the promise of seeing his old flame Rachel (Lauren Ashley Carter) – also a
psychokinetic and in the research program – again. Turns out Slovak is a bit of
a liar, for while Rachel is indeed in the program – and is now motivated with an
opportunity for seeing Zack again as he is the other way around – Slovak clearly
(and for only vague reasons) does not plan on reuniting the lovers ever
again.
The research program isn’t quite as interested in helping its subjects control or suppress their powers as promised either. In fact, while Slovak has developed an intermittently working drug to suppress psychic powers for a time, his research goal is to give himself psychokinetic powers. This he does by extracting some of his victims’ spinal fluid, extracting the magical psi juice, and injecting that into his own neck. Which, as it turns out, has rather severe side effects.
So things will get bloody once Zack realizes he has developed a tolerance against the psi-suppressants he is shot up with, and he and Rachel go on the run.
Obviously, Joe Begos’s The Mind’s Eye is – aesthetically and in its content – deeply inspired by early 80s psi thrillers and horror movies, and plays out like the entertaining dumb fun brother of Cronenberg’s Scanners, a role all of that film’s actual sequels aspired to but never managed to reach. The closeness to the Cronenberg film (and comparable movies) is very much one of general aesthetics, exploding heads, people making ultra-constipated faces during psychic battles (best in show in that regard is the inevitable – yet lovely - Larry Fessenden who should be in even more movies to make psychic battle faces), and the basic plot. What The Mind’s Eye lacks in comparison is any depth whatsoever. This is strictly what you see is what you get surface spectacle cinema.
However, I don’t think that’s a bad thing in this case, for Begos’s movie never pretends to be anything else, nor does it try to be anything more than a movie about people with psychic powers bloodily battling one another. Begos is rather good at what he’s doing here, too, achieving a unified and highly effective aesthetic on a very low budget, and making up for what he lacks in the opportunity to shoot large action set pieces with a mostly fantastic eye for more intimate as well as doubly bloody action, the sort of thing that should embarrass quite a few people shooting direct-to-DVD action movies that never manage to look as good nor feel as exciting.
In its own way, The Mind’s Eye is pretty much a perfect film, achieving what it sets out to do flawlessly, while looking good and splattering a lot of bodily fluids across the screen (some of it pleasantly chocolate-coloured).
The research program isn’t quite as interested in helping its subjects control or suppress their powers as promised either. In fact, while Slovak has developed an intermittently working drug to suppress psychic powers for a time, his research goal is to give himself psychokinetic powers. This he does by extracting some of his victims’ spinal fluid, extracting the magical psi juice, and injecting that into his own neck. Which, as it turns out, has rather severe side effects.
So things will get bloody once Zack realizes he has developed a tolerance against the psi-suppressants he is shot up with, and he and Rachel go on the run.
Obviously, Joe Begos’s The Mind’s Eye is – aesthetically and in its content – deeply inspired by early 80s psi thrillers and horror movies, and plays out like the entertaining dumb fun brother of Cronenberg’s Scanners, a role all of that film’s actual sequels aspired to but never managed to reach. The closeness to the Cronenberg film (and comparable movies) is very much one of general aesthetics, exploding heads, people making ultra-constipated faces during psychic battles (best in show in that regard is the inevitable – yet lovely - Larry Fessenden who should be in even more movies to make psychic battle faces), and the basic plot. What The Mind’s Eye lacks in comparison is any depth whatsoever. This is strictly what you see is what you get surface spectacle cinema.
However, I don’t think that’s a bad thing in this case, for Begos’s movie never pretends to be anything else, nor does it try to be anything more than a movie about people with psychic powers bloodily battling one another. Begos is rather good at what he’s doing here, too, achieving a unified and highly effective aesthetic on a very low budget, and making up for what he lacks in the opportunity to shoot large action set pieces with a mostly fantastic eye for more intimate as well as doubly bloody action, the sort of thing that should embarrass quite a few people shooting direct-to-DVD action movies that never manage to look as good nor feel as exciting.
In its own way, The Mind’s Eye is pretty much a perfect film, achieving what it sets out to do flawlessly, while looking good and splattering a lot of bodily fluids across the screen (some of it pleasantly chocolate-coloured).
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