‘The Monkey’ Review: A Delightfully Absurd and Funny Gorefest

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The Monkey is exactly the kind of hilarious, madcap horror-comedy we need to inject a little life (and death) into cinemas this February. The latest from Longlegs director Osgood Perkins, The Monkey is based on the Stephen King short story of the same name and follows twin brothers who discover a mysterious wind-up monkey (don’t call it a toy) that belonged to their AWOL father. Soon after, people around them start dying in a string of bizarre and extreme accidents. With a setup like that, it’s hard not to have fun. I was unfamiliar with the original short story, so I can’t speak to its faithfulness as an adaptation, but I can say that going in relatively blind made for a great movie-going experience. Above all, the movie doesn’t take itself too seriously—it’s easily Perkins’ funniest and most popcorn-worthy movie to date. So, if you’re one of the people who enjoyed the more humorous parts of Longlegs, odds are you’ll love The Monkey. Just be aware that, for the most part, this is a different beast, differing wildly from Longlegs in tone. As with Perkins’ other films, I don’t think this movie will be for everyone, but it sure as hell worked for me. I’ve mostly been a fan of his previous work, even the ones that have been less critically well-received. I liked Longlegs; I appreciated the strange, slow artfulness of I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives in The House; and I loved The Blackcoat’s Daughter, which genuinely chilled me when I first watched it many years ago. The Monkey is a great addition to that filmography, though it might be lacking the depth or uniqueness of some of Perkins’ other movies. It’s also, by far, his least frightening movie to date. If you’re coming into this one expecting to be scared, you’ll likely be disappointed. As a horror movie, it sort of falls flat. But as an over-the-top horror-comedy, it provides plenty of laughs and some very creative kills that don’t pull any punches. If anything, it’s the moments when the movie tries to get overly serious or inject some family and relationship drama that don’t fully land. The throughlines are there, and the monkey as a metaphor for fathers passing down their trauma and darkness onto their own kids mostly works—but the characters themselves just don’t really have enough depth, and we as an audience don’t really have enough time with them to really care about their relationships with one another. Theo James does a fine job in a dual role as the adult version of twins Bill and Hal, making each twin feel distinct and clearly having some fun. Speaking of dual roles, Tatiana Maslany plays Bill and Hal’s mom, Lois, and was definitely the standout for me. She just knows exactly what kind of movie she’s in, and plays it perfectly. Beyond that, Elijah Wood and Adam Scott also show up in fun bit parts, making the most of limited screentime. Casting Maslany in a movie in which one actor plays two roles might be a clever nod to her turn playing multiple roles on Orphan Black, or else it’s a fun coincidence. Either way, the movie is full of similarly clever nods, running gags, and brick jokes that reward those who are paying attention and pay off to great effect. For such a dumb movie (complementary), it’s a lot smarter than it appears. What more can I say? It’s big, dumb fun, with a mean streak that schlock horror fans will love. Verdict The Monkey is for all the sickos who miss the Final Destination franchise. It’s unserious and stupid in the best ways, with some of the funniest, goriest, and most creative horror movie kills I’ve seen in a hot minute. While the movie tries for some deeper themes, it’s best when it’s not trying to be anything other than an absurd and silly gorefest. This movie won’t be to everyone’s taste, but those who are on its wavelength will lap it up.

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Presence Review—A Supernatural Stunner with a Spiritless Script

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Presence is the latest film from director Steven Soderbergh who has one of the more interesting filmographies I’ve seen. It includes the Ocean’s Trilogy, Magic Mike, Contagion, Sex, Lies, and Videotape, and Logan Lucky, a movie I really, really like. He was my most watched director last year too, as over the holidays I watched the Ocean’s Trilogy and Logan Lucky again! I’m definitely a fan of his heist movies, but I was incredibly intrigued when I first heard he was directing this movie because it’s so different from his movies that I’m familiar with.  Presence is listed as a supernatural thriller drama with a very simple premise: “A family moves into a suburban house and becomes convinced they’re not alone.” Personally though, I’d classify this more as a drama with supernatural elements and not really a thriller, even if there was one moment where it gave me some chills.  So should you make an appearance for Presence, or is this one better left ghosted? My Thoughts Writing this review feels a bit different for me because, as I start putting my thoughts together the night after watching the movie, I still don’t know what my final rating on the Heart-O-Meter will be. In the past, I’ve begun reviews with a clear rating in mind, only to revise it as I worked through my thoughts. This time, though, I’m writing with the specific goal of figuring out how I truly feel about the movie and whether or not the good outweighs the bad.  Let’s start off with what I liked, which was the direction and more specifically, the camerawork. From the opening scene of the movie (which is why I don’t consider this a spoiler) Soderbergh makes it clear that the camera is a character. It is the presence in the house. The movie has a ton of beautiful oners where the camera just floats through the house as the people living in the house go about their day. As we went up the stairs, there weren’t obvious shakes of the camera with each step, as if a human was walking up the stairs which allowed me to really buy into this effect. It was these early moments that I really loved what I was watching. It was such a unique and cool idea to have our “main character” be played by a camera. I’m just a humble film buff, so I have no idea if another movie has done something to this extent before, but damn did this feel so unique and cool.  Don’t worry though, if this sounds a little too weird for you, we’ve got plenty of humans in the movie too. Soon after the movie begins, a family moves into this house where this presence is tethered. Lucy Liu plays Rebecca (the mother), Chris Sullivan plays Chris (the father), and the two kids are played by Callina Liang (Chloe, the sister) and Eddy Maday (Tyler, the brother). West Mulholland also plays Ryan, Tyler’s friend from school. Before I dig into the performances, there was one downside to the choice to make the camera a character and it was how the movie transitions from scene to scene. Every time a scene concludes, we cut to black before it opens on the next scene. Sometimes this was done a bit more intentionally and organically but other times it wasn’t. For example, the presence in the house seems to feel most at home in the closet in Chloe’s room (as seen in the photo at the top of this review). Some scenes end with the presence returning to the closet, as if it’s sleeping, I guess, but sometimes we will just cut to black at the end of a conversation people have in the kitchen. Ultimately, I found that this hurts the pacing a bit as the movie feels like it’s constantly stopping and starting. At only 85 minutes long though, the pacing issues really didn’t bother me too much. Now, let’s talk about the performances. Of the entire cast, the only standout for me was Chris Sullivan, who delivered a strong performance as Chris. Even now, I’m struggling to determine whether the issue with everyone else was due to bad performances or awful dialogue, but I’m leaning towards the latter. I mean, this was some of the most awful dialogue I’ve ever heard in a movie. The worst examples were almost all from the younger characters too. It’s incredibly jarring when people deliver dialogue that just doesn’t sound or feel right. This was especially true with Ryan and Tyler who talk like nobody else on earth. The script was written by 61-year-old David Koepp and it definitely feels like a 61-year-old wrote what they think Gen Zers sound like without actually verifying that with anyone. I tried to move past it earlier in the movie, but eventually I couldn’t take it anymore and I was quietly giggling every single time these characters said pretty much anything. This was such a big issue for me that it’s really what drags the movie down so much. To make things worse, the narrative itself wasn’t incredibly strong either and I had guessed where the movie was going about 1/3rd of the way in. I’m also not someone who watches something and tries to guess how it will end either, it just seemed so obvious to me at a certain point.  The kids are the main focus of the movie and so most of the narrative and emotional beats were weighed down by the absolutely awful dialogue they had. David Koepp in terms of box-office numbers is one of the most successful writers of all time, but if you look at his filmography, it includes some stinkers like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, and The Mummy (2017). I really wish Soderbergh had a script that was half as good as his direction and camerawork because I think I would’ve absolutely loved this

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‘Nosferatu’ Review: Beautifully Crafted Gothic Horror

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It’s hard to tell old stories in new ways. That’s especially true when the story in question is one that’s been told countless times since the 1890s. If you’ve never read Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), you’re still likely familiar with the story in some form or another. If not that, then you’re surely familiar with the legacy of vampire storytelling that the novel ushered into the 20th century. How could you not be? Nosferatu is not, strictly speaking, an adaption of Dracula. It’s a remake of the silent German expressionist masterpiece Nosferatu, directed by F. W. Murnau in 1922. But the Murnau film is itself a thinly veiled adaptation of Stoker’s novel (Stoker’s widow sued Murnau for copyright infringement and won). Nosferatu had already been remade at least once before by Werner Herzog in the 1970s, while the original Dracula story has been remade and reimagined over and over again in the last hundred or so years. So, why would anyone remake Nosferatu in 2024? This is undoubtedly a passion project for Robert Eggers. In almost every interview on the Nosferatu press tour, he’s mentioned that he first saw Murnau’s Nosferatu when he was 9 years old and it left a big impression on him. Then, when he was 17, he put on his own stage adaptation, in which he played Count Orlok, and that project apparently propelled Eggers into wanting to become a director. Eggers’ take on Nosferatu isn’t radically new if you’ve seen any other adaptation of this story, but that’s okay. It would be almost impossible to do something completely new at this point, especially when vampires are involved. What his adaptation does do, however, is bring Nosferatu back to its folkloric roots. Eggers has proven with his previous films that he is a master of bringing ultra-specific period settings to life. His obsessive attention to detail and devotion to historical accuracy are perfect for a film like this. Some might argue that he’s even a little too interested in the details. Count Orlok’s period-accurate mustache (he is an undead 17th-century Transylvanian nobleman, after all), for one, has been the subject of much online debate and memes. Personally, I loved the ‘stache and thought it was a unique costuming choice that sets this Count apart from previous versions. But I can also see why some people found it strange or funny (along with Bill Skarsgard’s voice and accent work), and why that kind of reaction isn’t necessarily what you want out of a horror movie. Likewise, there are some scenes in the movie that serve no purpose in the narrative, other than to showcase some of the folk mythology around vampires. I’m thinking in particular of a sequence in which Nicholas Hoult’s Thomas Hutter follows a group of Romani travellers into the woods. It’s an atmospheric and interesting sequence, and it sets the mood for Hutter’s journey into Orlok’s castle, but with the movie’s somewhat drawn-out pacing, a scene like this could easily have been cut without losing anything essential. It’s only there, really, because Eggers is so devoted to showcasing historical vampire lore. Eggers interest seems to lie much more in recreating a world and an atmosphere and an image, as opposed to really digging deep into his characters or thematic concerns. The film’s protagonist, Ellen, is played well by Lily-Rose Depp, especially in her physicality, but certain character details are kept deliberately vague (her past trauma, her desires, her feelings of being an outsider in her time and place)—we get glimpses that could be explored further but aren’t really beyond the more ambiguous way these details are presented. But really, I’m nit-picking here. That surface-levelness adds to the almost fairytale-like quality of the movie. Beyond that, this film is also impeccably crafted. Everything from the costumes and sets to the use of natural lighting to the dark sumptuous cinematography makes this adaptation feel special, even if the beats are all familiar. It’s Gothic horror through and through, dark and operatic and nightmarish. While I wasn’t exactly scared by the film myself, it exudes a pervasive sense of dread that feels like it honours the source material. At one point, Count Orlok tells Ellen, “I am an appetite. Nothing more.” This version of Nosferatu is frightening precisely because he isn’t at all humanlike in his desire. He’s not a suave calculating gentleman with teeth—he’s a decrepit monster driven by an insatiable primal need to consume. There’s no sexualized caressing of pristine, untouched skin on a pale, outstretched neck. This Nosferatu is all writhing bodies and visceral, animalistic leeching from the chest (closer to the source—another great detail taken from vampire folklore). While the film gestures toward the romantic with the preternatural bond that Ellen shares with Orlok, and while it has a whole psychosexual thing going on the surface (Ellen’s moaning when she’s under Orlok’s spell; her diagnosis of hysteria, a condition historically weaponized against women who exhibited sexual agency; Nicholas Hoult’s frantic sweaty shirtless desperation), this is a largely bloodless vampire movie, in the sense that it’s much more grounded in the earth. It’s more interested in moldering rotting corpses and filthy hordes of rats and contorted bodies and faces, with blood leaking from the eyes. While there’s a fair amount of sex here, the film is far from being sexy. In the long history of vampire stories, we’ve reached a saturation point, and the vampire has arguably been defanged in pop culture ever since Twilight. So, I’m glad to have another vampire story in which vampires are not just scary again, but truly monstrous. Verdict No one asked for or needed another take on Dracula—yet I’m glad this dark Gothic nightmare of a film exists. Robert Eggers’ incredible eye and attention to detail bring some fresh blood to a story as old as the medium of film itself. The unsettling atmosphere, impeccable craft, and very committed performances—especially a physically demanding turn from Lily-Rose Depp—make this adaptation of the 1922 classic well worth your

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‘The Brutalist’ Review: A Dense Historical Epic About the Difficulties of Making Art

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It’s been weeks, and there are images from Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist that haven’t left me. It’s an exquisitely crafted film, shot with care on VistaVision, a largely obsolete 35mm film format that hadn’t been used in the full production of a movie in decades. This is a large, dense film. In a strange way, it reminds me somewhat of Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis but without the camp and bad green screen. It’s audacious, ambitious, visually distinctive, and structurally unique. Like Megalopolis, The Brutalist is an American epic. It’s about an architect, a visionary, and in many ways, it’s about filmmaking itself—art-making itself—and the ways that art interacts with commerce, the obstacles and sheer manpower that it takes to erect a building or create something like a film. It’s also an immigrant story, about people who come to America to build monuments and achieve the greatness promised by the American Dream. I still don’t know what to fully make of The Brutalist, but I do know that it’s been haunting my brain ever since we walked out of the Paramount Theatre in Austin, where we had the pleasure of seeing it projected on 35mm. The experience was fantastic, and seeing a movie that was shot on film projected on film is, bar none, one of the best ways to experience a movie like this. It not only looked amazing, but the material quality of the projection made it feel like watching the past come to life, which is exactly what you want in a historical drama. Set in the post-war period, the movie follows László Tóth (Adrien Brody at his best), a Hungarian-Jewish architect, the titular brutalist, who makes his way to Philadelphia to build a life after being separated from his wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones) and orphaned niece Zsófia (Raffey Cassidy), who are still in Europe after the Holocaust. There, his life becomes entangled with rich industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce), who recognizes his talent for building and gives him a project. The film is structured in two parts, with a built-in 15-minute intermission in between, as well as an overture and an epilogue to bookend the whole endeavor. Structurally and formally, it’s one of the most striking movies I’ve seen in a long time. The use of a near-forgotten film format, the length and distinct two-part structure, the inclusion of an intermission—all of these elements are a kind of cinematic brutalism, emulating in a way the architectural movement that gives the movie its title. Brutalism was and is an architectural movement borne out of the tumultuous mid-century, a reaction directly in response to modernism and post-war architecture. The name is largely thought to have come from the French term, “béton brut,” meaning “raw concrete.” Concrete is one of the staples of brutalism, which was largely centred around creating functional buildings out of sturdy and cheap materials, left unadorned to expose their material qualities. The principles of brutalism emphasized simplicity, structure, and material honesty. At its inception, it was built on a utopian ideal of utilitarianism. As a movement, brutalism was short-lived and has something of a contentious legacy, with its large concrete structures often deemed cold and ugly. Its legacy is, however, far-reaching, found in everything from Soviet housing blocks to underground transit systems to city halls and libraries and cultural centres around the world. Personally, I find a lot of brutalist architecture to be beautiful in its own way. Brutalism is a blank canvas and an open question. It’s both utopian and dystopian, minimalist and maximalist, all at once. It’s confrontational. Of course, it was doomed to fail. Of course, it fell out of favour. But the best architecture, like the best cinema, invites you in, asks you to make your own interpretation, makes you feel something. That’s exactly how I experienced The Brutalist. I was captivated and moved by it. I was left with an open question. I realize I’ve said little about the actual movie so far, but it’s a movie that I don’t think I can really do justice by simply telling you about it. It’s not a perfect film. The first half moves and breathes more fluidly than the second half, which gets a bit lost in the fog of its own ambition, somewhat akin to Tóth himself. But I can say that I was never bored during its three-and-a-half-hour runtime, which is a rare feat. Adrien Brody also gives what is surely one of the best performances of the year, while Guy Pearce steals almost every scene he’s in. There’s beauty, humour, and darkness here in spades. In fact, some beats are bleak to the point of almost being borderline melodramatic, but the film somehow never buckles under the weight of those choices. If the end result has its rough edges, like raw concrete, the whole of it—long and dense and difficult, but still beautiful and balanced—is something you can’t help but admire. Verdict The Brutalist is big, bold, and beautiful. I loved so much about it, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since leaving the theatre. It’s one of the most beautifully shot films I’ve seen all year, and it takes big swings in a way that I can’t help but respect. If you want a sweeping historical epic about people in all their flawed humanity trying to build things that will leave their mark on the world, portrayed by some of the best actors we’ve got, then this is one movie you don’t want to miss.

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‘The Order’ Review: Jude Law’s Neo-Nazi Docudrama Is One of the Best Cat-And-Mouse Crime Thrillers of the Year

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The Order was one of the biggest surprises of AFF for me. I went into it with no expectations, not really knowing anything about it. What I got was one of the tightest crime dramas of the year so far. Of director Justin Kurzel’s previous work, I’d only seen his gritty, brooding adaptation of Macbeth, starring Michael Fassbender. Most of the rest of his filmography consists of smaller films set in his native Australia and probably his most high-profile film, the poorly received Assassin’s Creed adaptation from 2016. Likewise, screenwriter Zach Baylin’s previous credits include the Oscar-nominated King Richard alongside films like this year’s The Crow reboot and Bob Marley: One Love. All in all, a mixed bag, so you’d be forgiven for going into The Order with some trepidation. I assure you, however, it’s well worth your time. Set in the 1980s, the film is based on true events, following the FBI’s investigation into a white supremacist group, called The Order, behind a string of increasingly violent crimes with the goal of eventually overthrowing the US government. Jude Law plays the aging FBI agent in charge of the investigation, opposite Nicholas Hoult as Bob Matthews, the icy and persistent leader of The Order. If the plot sounds familiar or particularly resonant with recent history in America—well, it is. I was, personally, unfamiliar with the events depicted in the movie, so watching it was pretty eye-opening. I couldn’t believe that I had never heard about The Order or their crimes, some of which were quite high-profile and led to one of the largest manhunts in FBI history.   Impressively, the movie manages to stay propulsive and entertaining without sensationalizing or diminishing the weight of the events it depicts. For having such dark, frighteningly relevant subject matter, it toes that line very well. Maybe it’s that I had just watched another gritty cat-and-mouse thriller in Dirty Harry earlier during the festival, but The Order felt like it had the sensibilities of a 70s procedural, despite its 80s setting. It’s stylistic without being flashy, dark and naturalistic, straightforward but still propulsive and thrilling. I’ve been a fan of Nicholas Hoult’s since I was a Skins-obsessed teenager (shout out to my other formerly Skins-obsessed girlies), but I’ll readily admit he’s been a fairly under-the-radar presence since breaking out into bigger film roles. He’s never bad, but he’s never particularly stood out, either. But here, he is chillingly good as a racist insurrectionist, giving what is undoubtedly a career-best performance so far (this one edges out his performance in Juror #2 for me, though he’s very good there too in a different kind of moral tale). Law is also fantastic as the down-and-out, mustachioed Agent Husk, in what might also be one of his best performances to date, making a role that could easily fall into tropey familiarity feel lived-in. Even the supporting cast is excellent, particularly Jurnee Smollett and Tye Sheridan, who both bring a lot of pathos to characters that might otherwise feel surface-level. I wasn’t expecting to be so moved by this film, yet I was. The movie’s action sequences—shootouts and robberies and an unforgettable final raid in a smoldering house—stand out as thrilling set pieces. But the film also effectively conveys the weight of collateral damage amidst all that violence. While there are clear bad guys and good guys here, given one side is made up of militant neo-Nazis, the movie draws some interesting parallels between its two leads. In particular, it draws a line between the sacrifices that are inevitably made in dogged pursuit of a single-minded obsession—whether it’s pursuit of an ideological conviction or of justice. Husk’s career of chasing criminals has cost him his family and his health, and over the course of the movie, we see Sheridan’s overzealous rookie cop character increasingly buy into Husk’s determined approach, almost “indoctrinated,” as screenwriter Zach Baylin put it in the post-film Q&A at AFF, in parallel to Matthews’ indoctrination of his disciples and his children. Of course, Sheridan’s Jamie is driven by his moral compass and a desire to protect his family, wanting to make the world a little safer for his biracial child. But in a strange way, family is also what Bob Matthews offers to his followers—a twisted form of acceptance and community, ironically based around a hateful and destructive ideology. For all his talk of brotherhood and family, however, he’s selfishly obsessed with furthering his own bloodline, at the expense of his wife and their adopted children. The explosive and unnatural violence that’s borne out of his commitment to his cause stands in stark contrast with the vast and natural beauty of the film’s Pacific Northwest landscape (gorgeously shot by DP Adam Arkapaw). These larger thematic threads all give the film some depth, despite what is largely a by-the-book narrative. Ultimately, there’s nothing revolutionary here (how many times have we seen the ‘grizzled detective with skeletons in his closet’ trope before?), but the movie accomplishes what it sets out to accomplish remarkably well. It’s tightly paced, with beautiful cinematography and excellent action sequences, and tells a story that’s both emotionally and historically resonant. Verdict If you’re looking for an old-school meat-and-potatoes historical crime thriller about cops and neo-Nazi robbers, The Order fits the bill perfectly. While some of the supporting characters are thinly drawn, the movie is bolstered by standout performances, propulsive action, beautiful cinematography, and a story pulled from one of the many dark chapters in American history, one that’s in many ways still being written.

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Operation Taco Gary’s — A Road Trip Movie with Conspiracies, Comedy, and a Few Bumps Along the Way

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Our coverage of the movies we saw at the Austin Film Festival keeps moving along! This time I’m talking about Operation Taco Gary’s. Written and directed by Michael Kvamme, this comedy is a throwback to comedies of the early 2000s, even going so far as to cast Jason Biggs of American Pie fame. The two leads of the film are Simon Rex as Danny and Dustin Milligan as Luke, two brothers that share very little common ground when it comes to the way the world works. So, is this road trip comedy a nostalgic joyride or does it run out of gas? My Thoughts There’s definitely some laughs to be had with Operation Taco Gary’s! The setup is simple, as Luke is getting ready to leave and start his new chapter in Ottawa, to pursue a new job opportunity. Before he leaves, his brother Danny arrives, who is a big time conspiracy theorist and as they hit the road together, it appears that there might be more to these conspiracies than Luke thought. First, we gotta touch on the cast! Simon Rex definitely stood out the most, but Dustin Milligan was solid as well as the co-lead and the audience surrogate for the movie. The supporting cast here is great though too, with Brenda Song, Tony Cavalero (who is hilarious in this and the HBO series Righteous Gemstones), the previously mentioned Jason Biggs, and the amazing Doug Jones. A solid cast is key to a good comedy and writer/director Michael Kvamme definitely had plenty to work with here! Another thing that I liked about this movie was the way it actually handled the comedy around the conspiracy theorists in the movie. I found that the movie really balances the idea of laughing at and with the conspiracy theorist characters, which makes it more accessible to anyone and avoids the trap of just repeatedly mocking these kinds of people. It also manages to avoid feeling too much “of its time” by not being hyper focused on the conspiracies of the current era and takes a more creative approach to develop more unique conspiracies for the world of the movie, even if they take some inspiration from the real world occasionally. The best parts of the movie were a couple sequences in particular that really stood out, including a chase scene through the woods that had the audience at our screening in Austin cringing and laughing in equal measure. In fact, the highest points of the movie for me happened earlier in different scenes that took place in the woods. This hurt the movie a little for me on a pacing level, just because I laughed the hardest before the midpoint of the movie at a couple different sequences that they never really were able to top in the back half of the movie. On that note, I think the shortfalls of the movie fittingly were a lot of the shortfalls of the early 2000s era comedies. The narrative thread that is propelling the characters forward isn’t the most engaging, for example. It also has a particular brand of humour woven in throughout the movie that just didn’t land with me as consistently as I would’ve hoped, but if you get on its wavelength, you’ll definitely have some pretty consistent laughs. The third act in particular didn’t work as well for me, as the movie has a more serious moment that really clashes tonally with the rest of the movie. After this moment, I was kind of waiting for the movie to do something to undo that moment or make some light or add some humour to it and they just didn’t. Verdict Overall, I liked the commitment to a pure comedy that doesn’t rely on or overload itself with forced emotional moments. It’s definitely a throwback to that early 2000s era of comedies and if you like that idea, I think you will definitely like this movie! For me, while there were some incredibly solid moments in the first half, I thought the last half didn’t work as well. The movie doesn’t overstay its welcome, thanks the lean runtime, which kept it from feeling like a chore in the back half, even if it didn’t work as well for me. Still, if you’re looking for a break from the world, there’s definitely laughs to be had with Operation Taco Gary’s!

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‘The Beldham’ Review: Eerie Sound Design and A Haunting Exploration of Motherhood Elevate This Indie Gem

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The Beldham opens with a title card, informing us of the meaning of its title: “Beldham” (alternatively spelled “beldam”)—an old woman; a witch. It immediately clues us in to what kind of monster we may be dealing with in this indie horror gem. Directed by Angela Gulner in her feature debut, the movie follows Harper (played excellently by Mike Flanagan regular Katie Parker), a woman who’s recently given birth and moves into an old house that her aging mother (Patricia Heaton) is in the process of flipping with the help of her new boyfriend (Corbin Bernsen) and a live-in aide (Emma Fitzpatrick). With that setup, you might expect a run-of-the-mill haunted house story, but The Beldham isn’t as straightforward as it might seem. As a strange presence lurking within the house begins to reveal itself to Harper, it’s her own mind that starts to come into question—and it becomes clear that there’s more going on than meets the eye. One thing I appreciated about the movie is its use of setting. The whole movie takes place in the aforementioned house, and, while I’m sure that’s partly due to budgetary constraints, it makes the movie more focused and gives it a concrete sense of place. Like the best haunted house stories, however, it’s unclear if it’s the house or the psyche of its inhabitants that’s haunted. As one character puts it: “the brain is a wild beast.” In The Beldham, the mind itself is cast as a monster. Is Harper really seeing a witch or is it in her head? Can it be both? Is there something else entirely going on? For most of the film, that ambiguity drives the action, blurring the lines between the natural and the supernatural. That central metaphor not only makes for interesting narrative tension but also allows for deeper exploration of the movie’s themes. It’s easy to position the film in a line of modern-day motherhood-themed horror movies, but The Beldham reminded me most not of a movie, but of one of my favourite short stories—Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper.” First published in 1892, the story is about a woman suffering from what we’d now call postpartum depression but was then diagnosed as a form of hysteria. To treat it, her doctor, like Gilman’s real-life doctor, prescribes a “rest cure,” during which she’s prohibited from writing. The unnamed narrator, like Gilman, is a writer, so not being able to write, and being confined inside the asylum-like house she and her husband move into, causes her mind to slowly deteriorate in what is one of the greatest feminist psychological horror stories ever written. The key to its power lies in its ambiguity—is the narrator losing her mind? Or are there supernatural forces at work in the house? You can interpret it either way, and that’s what makes the story so effective. My favourite kind of story lives in that gray area between the natural and supernatural, and The Beldham fits into that storytelling tradition beautifully. It feels hewn from the same stuff that Gilman’s short story is: grief and rage and confusion and anger. The painful realities of motherhood and aging, of being a woman, and the archetypes that we’ve been cast into for ages, since long before even Gilman’s time—the mad-woman, the old crone, the beldham. It’s the stuff that the best horror stories are usually made of. As Gulner herself puts it, horror is “the internal made external.” This—this is exactly why I love the genre. Horror, maybe more than any other genre, is so good at taking the internal—the emotional and psychological realities we experience—and externalizing it through metaphor and fantasy, making complex human experiences more intelligible through the inhuman and profane. While The Beldham doesn’t reinvent the formula, its particular mixture of elements felt pretty fresh to me. In fact, the movie genuinely surprised me, with a narrative turn that I didn’t see coming. In today’s movie landscape, it’s a real feat for a movie to surprise its audience, and on that front, The Beldham succeeded for me where so many other recent horror movies have failed by being overly predictable. Sure, the beats here are familiar, but the movie is smartly written and confidently directed. Some of the creative flourishes—I’m thinking particularly of a few recurring dream sequences with very striking visuals and cinematography, as well as the sound design throughout the movie, not to mention that final shot and credits sequence—show just how creative you can get with a small budget and a single setting. Another thing I appreciated is that the movie isn’t afraid to take its time as well. For having a short runtime of 85 minutes, the pace feels a bit slow at times, but its considered approach gives the characters more room to breathe. I was mostly compelled and on-board with the central relationships, although some of the characters (particularly the boyfriend) feel superfluous and lacking in depth. I did, however, appreciate that all of the main relationships are between women—mothers and daughters and caretakers—which is itself still something of a rarity to see. The performances here also stand out. I was especially impressed with Parker, who proves to be a capable lead in a role that demands a layered performance. Heaton is also great, at turns cold-hearted and almost villainous, and at other times, more of a caring mother figure, walking a fine line to great effect by the end. Like “The Yellow Wallpaper”, The Beldham is interested in the complex emotional realities of its characters, and it uses the tropes of haunted houses and witchcraft to explore larger themes of motherhood, aging, loss, and intergenerational trauma. Ultimately, this is a very solid debut, and I’m very jazzed to see more women-focused horror movies that are actually directed and made by women filmmakers. Verdict While The Beldham is more chilling and emotional than outright scary, and it treads some familiar ground, it’s also a surprisingly confident feature debut with some great performances and

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My First Film Review: Zia Anger’s Bold Autobiographical Journey Blurs Fiction and Reality

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My First Film is one of the most unique films I have seen in a while. From what I understand, the movie is at least partially autobiographical, based on events from the life of writer and director Zia Anger. It’s also incredibly meta. The movie stars Odessa Young as Vita, a young director recounting her experience making her first film. But to say that’s all that this movie is about wouldn’t be right.  It’s not just about the struggles of a first-time filmmaker, it also delves into the complexities of relationships, the female experience, and the very essence of what it means to create something.  I’ve watched countless films, but this one stands out as perhaps the most raw and deeply personal. It’s precisely movies like this, though, that make me a big fan of this film’s distributor, Mubi. For those unaware, Mubi isn’t just a distributor, but also a streaming platform and production company. Their library includes some major award-winning films, but what I like most about Mubi is how their content focuses on up-and-coming auteur filmmakers.  In my Alien: Romulus review, I went on for some time about the Disney-fication of cinema that is focused on cheap thrills, designed to manipulate an audience trained to cheer for the past rather than embrace something new. Mubi is the complete opposite, supporting risk-takers that dare to do something new and unique with their films. To be clear, this is not a sponsorship plug either. Mubi is one of the few streamers willing to support daring filmmakers and strive to offer their films in theatres, two things that matter very much to me. They also remain ad-free and one of the more affordable options while the other streamers repeatedly increase their prices and introduce ads.  My First Film will have a limited theatrical run starting on August 30th and will be available worldwide on Mubi on September 6th. If you’re not already a Mubi subscriber, you can sign up now and get your first seven days free. Billy Feldman co-wrote the film with Anger and the rest of the cast includes Devon Ross, Cole Doman, Jane Wickline, Philip Ettinger, Eamon Farren, Eleanore Hendricks, Sage Ftacek, Jackson Anthony, Seth Steinberg, Hailey Gates, Sarah Michelson, Abram Kurtz, and Ruby Max Fury.  So, was My First Film a promising new beginning for Zia Anger? My Thoughts When the credits rolled on My First Film, I found myself staring into space, trying to process what I’d just experienced. In a word, this film is authentic. Its rawness and Anger’s fearless approach create a deeply poignant experience. Certain moments, especially between Vita and her boyfriend, were so visceral that I felt a physical reaction. There was one scene in particular where I wanted to step into the film just so I could call out this character for how they were acting. I particularly loved Odessa Young as Vita. The whole thing really rests on her shoulders and she was absolutely brilliant. I always felt myself rooting for her character, even as she did things that upset and alienated people. Even if I disagreed with her choices, I understood them and this really comes down to a solid script and a strong performance from Young.  Beyond the writing and performances, the music and cinematography also stood out. The score amplified the film’s emotional depth, while creative lighting added a dreamlike quality to certain scenes.  But the heart of this movie lies in its themes. I mentioned earlier just how personal this movie felt, and I think this created some powerful moments. However, I also struggled to find my way into what I thought were the more prominent aspects of the movie. To be clear, this is not a criticism but more of an observation. Much of this movie is about creation, but that manifests in two large ways in the film: through the creation of a movie and the creation of life itself through pregnancy. Now, neither of these aspects are very applicable to me, but nevertheless I was still able to understand things, even if I didn’t feel them as strongly as some others might.  One particular aspect that stuck out to me, though, was the isolation that Vita experiences. She struggles during the production of her movie with this feeling that nobody is as committed to it as she is and the impacts of that are significant. This is further complicated outside of the production of her movie as Vita deals with some deeply traumatic personal experiences and unfortunately goes through them all alone. You feel the impact of these moments on the character, and I really appreciated that the narrative allowed the character to comment on these moments with the benefit of hindsight.  The movie also utilizes its meta aspects to great effect when communicating its themes. Characters discuss the meaning and intent behind their scenes in the movie they’re making, but it never feels forced, it’s integral to the narrative. They also got creative in the edit, sprinkling in real footage that Anger shot of herself into the movie at various points. Some aspects almost feel documentary-like. These moments feel very clear and visually distinct, but they aren’t distracting and they blend in seamlessly into the fictional part of the movie.  Without giving too much away, the film’s final act is where it gets the most meta and takes the biggest risks. Anger takes a big swing here and I found myself uncomfortably laughing at how perplexing this scene was. During this scene, though, a character says a line that snapped me out of what I was seeing and sent me deep into thought. Verdict Some movies can be fully experienced and understood by just reading a plot summary. My First Film is the exact opposite. This is a film that demands to be experienced firsthand, with layers that can’t be captured in words alone. Undoubtedly, this is one of the most unique and personal films I’ve ever seen. Zia Anger blurs

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SLA at Fantasia: Azrael – Movie Review

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Azrael, directed by E.L. Katz (Cheap Thrills) and written by Simon Barrett (You’re Next, The Guest), is the most hard-hitting movie I’ve seen at Fantasia so far, and it was one of my most-anticipated, too, solely because I saw the words “post-apocalyptic” and “Samara Weaving” in its plot summary. I didn’t need to know anything else. Weaving impressed me immensely in The Babysitter and Ready or Not, and she continues to cement herself as a bona fide scream queen with Azrael. As mentioned, the movie is set in a post-apocalyptic world, and follows a young woman, played by Weaving, as she fends off a cult of mute zealots from which she escaped. And when I say “mute,” I mean that the movie contains almost no dialogue, as most of the characters can’t speak. That experimental slant makes Azrael a masterclass in “show, don’t tell,” and in trusting your audience. Without dialogue or exposition, we’re left to put together the pieces of who the characters are, what relationship they have to one another, and what world they occupy, without having it explicitly spelled out. That’s a really difficult thing to pull off. It takes guts to make a movie with no dialogue (and the little dialogue we do get is unintelligible), and that conceit could very easily have been mishandled. But it mostly works here. There’s no exposition, except for what we see and can interpret from what’s happening on screen. We don’t get any insight into what the characters are thinking and feeling, except for what they convey through their facial expressions. That’s a testament to the cast, but especially to Weaving, who has to carry the movie through its 85-minute runtime and absolutely knocks it out of the park. When introducing the film, Fantasia’s artistic director described Weaving’s performance as “utterly feral,” and there’s really no better way to describe it. She goes for broke, and gives us warmth, fear, desperation, exhaustion, rage, and more, all without uttering a word.   The rest of the cast is good too, but someone like Nathan Stewart-Jarrett (Misfits, Utopia—a show I’m still mourning a decade later) feels underutilized here. This is partly why I said “mostly” earlier. While I found the lack of dialogue to be mostly effective, I do think it inherently limits how much information we, as an audience, can glean. That’s not necessarily a bad thing in itself, because it makes the world-building a bit more evocative and ambiguous, rather than being over-explained. But it also limits how much we can connect with the characters, and it makes a lot of the secondary and tertiary characters feel quite thin. Stewart-Jarrett, for example, plays Weaving’s love interest, and while the two do a pretty good job selling the relationship, there’s simply not enough here to really make us care. You can learn a lot about characters from how they speak, but we don’t even know our characters’ names until the end credits. You can kind of assume Weaving’s protagonist is the titular Azrael, but it’s not certain till those credits roll. It can also be hard to maintain interest and attention when there’s no dialogue to hang your attention onto, so the film has to make up for it in other ways. Some of those work really well, like giving us a compelling actor as a lead or well-crafted sequences of action or tense horror. But the dark, same-y forest setting (the film was shot in Estonia)—while often beautiful and creepy and fitting for a post-apocalyptic horror—doesn’t really add too much visual interest for someone like me, at least, to stay engaged with. I can only speak for myself, and maybe it was just my state of mind that particular night, but I did find my thoughts wandering a bit at times. The movie also felt a bit longer than I expected it to with an 85-minute runtime, and I suspect that has to do with the lack of dialogue to propel things forward. Still, Azrael doesn’t overstay its welcome, and I have to give it credit for committing to the bit. And aside from its dialogue-free conceit, it’s also very committed in other ways. The action is brutal, with some excellent, hard-hitting sequences that are expertly executed. The gore is gruesome, and the creatures are pretty terrifying, with some fantastic make-up and costuming. Oh, yeah, did I forget to mention the creatures? Human cultists aren’t the only bad guys here, as Azrael also has to contend with the crispy, humanoid, flesh-eating monsters that they apparently worship. The sound design also goes very hard. In general, the sound has to do a lot of heavy lifting here, and it’s great. It’s crunchy and impactful, adding to the visceral feel of the movie. Ultimately, despite its flaws, the movie just has a lot of things that are very much my jam: Samara Weaving getting bloody and kicking ass, post-apocalyptic settings, revenge narratives, creepy woods, pulse-pounding action, scary monsters, and religious horror (Azrael, of course, refers to the Angel of Death, which may give you a hint at some of the ideas and imagery the movie is playing with). It’s a squirmy, gory, post-apocalyptic religious cult revenge action horror, starring Samara Weaving, with no dialogue. I’d say that rates pretty damn high on the cool meter. A lot of those elements felt reminiscent of other movies, including, among others, The Descent and Rosemary’s Baby, but I don’t say that as an insult. Those are two of my favourite horror movies, and being reminded of the greats isn’t necessarily a bad thing when the product is this solid. Azrael may not be the most original movie, but originality is overrated anyway. Verdict Azrael isn’t perfect, but it does a lot of things really well, and overall, I thought it was a very effective action-horror. It goes for broke with an experimental dialogue-free script that wouldn’t work nearly as well as it does if not for star Samara Weaving. Weaving is the main

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SLA at Fantasia: Cuckoo – Spoiler Free Review

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I went into Cuckoo with as little knowledge about it as possible, only really knowing that it starred Hunter Schafer and Dan Stevens, and what a wild ride it was! Cuckoo first premiered at the 2024 Berlin International Film Festival earlier this year, but Shea and I were lucky enough to catch it for its Montreal premiere at Fantasia. It was a packed house, and a really responsive, engaged crowd, making this a blast to experience. The audible laughs, gasps, and cheers really reminded me how great it is to see a movie with people who love movies. This film is, as I’m sure many reviews will put it, completely cuckoo (I know, I know—I’m sorry). The story follows Gretchen (Schafer), a seventeen-year-old girl, who moves to the German Alps with her father and his new family and begins to experience unsettling things in the small resort town in which they find themselves. I won’t spoil what happens, but the bird-related title may give you some indication, although I would bet you won’t be able to predict exactly where it goes. There are some high-concept ideas that writer-director Tilman Singer is playing with here, and while I don’t think all of them quite cohere, I will say that I was never bored while watching Cuckoo. The movie is a bit all over the place tonally, but it has a sense of oddball style and confidence in its imagery and ideas that I found really refreshing in a horror movie. While Midsommar may have breathed new life into creepy European towns as a setting for horror, the isolated and wooded Bavarian setting here, along with vintage-style costumes and set design, make Cuckoo feel like it was ripped out of another era, in a good way. Hunter Schafer and Dan Stevens were by far the biggest highlights for me, though. Stevens gives a riotous performance, complete with silly German accent, as the mysterious and creepy Herr König, stealing scenes left and right. Every time he appears on screen, he’s a joy to watch, and, as he did in Abigail earlier this year, he provided some of the biggest laughs of the night. But, really, this is Hunter Schafer’s movie. If you’ve seen HBO’s Euphoria, you already know she can act her face off in a dramatic role, but it’s great to see her in something even more outside the box. Here, she gets to play a fairly wide range, from teenage angst to bloody desperation, and it’s a delight to see her in a role with plenty of physicality, digging into the genre muck to get bloodied, battered, and bruised—if you’ve ever wanted to see Hunter Schafer as a butterfly knife-wielding final girl, you won’t be disappointed. But she also gets to demonstrate some deadpan comedic chops and gives Gretchen plenty of heart. I don’t know exactly how to describe it, but the mix of tones, along with the subject matter (think bird-related reproductive horror?), makes Cuckoo feel pretty unique. Not every idea or creative choice lands, but there are some truly laugh-out-loud moments, alongside some tense atmosphere and body horror, not to mention a beating heart running through it, with a surprisingly tender and affective payoff (there’s one scene in particular that even had me getting a bit misty-eyed). The film is very well-shot, too, with a great soundtrack and excellent use of music and sound design. The pay-off to everything the movie tries to set up and to its unsettling early moments may not be to everyone’s taste. It goes to surprising places and, at the same time, some people will probably feel that it doesn’t really go far enough. What all that means is that the movie also feels like it’s juggling too much. It wants to be an over-the-top creature feature, a disturbing horror/thriller, but also a quirky deadpan comedy and a meditation on grief and parenthood. To its credit, though, the result is a movie that’s dark and disturbing and gross and bloody and tender and funny and weird—in short, it feels quite singular. I can’t deny how fun a ride this was, even if it doesn’t really come together to form a coherent and meaningful whole. But when you’re having this much fun, does that really matter? Verdict Cuckoo – ❤️ Cuckoo is an uneven but undeniably entertaining thriller. There’s gore and gross-outs and blood and scares—but also plenty of laughs and even some tender moments that are surprisingly effective. That the movie can juggle so many different threads and tones, and still (mostly) work, is really a testament to writer-director Tilman Singer and stars Hunter Schafer and Dan Stevens. Stevens is always a blast to watch, and he’s absolutely in his element here as an eccentric German resort owner with something to hide. And Schafer gets to bloody her hands as an iconic final girl, complete with a sick bomber jacket and butterfly knife. These elements of style may stand out more than any coherent thematic concerns, but who cares when the pieces are this fun?

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