Movies
Fear Itself Review: Episode 1.2 ‘Spooked’
Last week NBC kicked off it’s horror anthology Fear Itself to pretty descent ratings, and now the show will continue this Thursday with “Spooked”, which was directed by Brad Anderson (“The Machinist”) and written by Matt Venne (“White Noise 2: The Light”). While on a stake out in a haunted house, a private eye (Eric Roberts) is made to confront the demons of his past. Jack Noseworthy (“Judging Amy”), Cynthia Watros (“Lost”) and Larry Gilliard Jr. (“The Wire”) also star. Click here to write your own reviews or read on for Tex’s thoughts on Anderson’s episode.
Spooked (Fear Itself Episode 1.2)
This week’s episode of Fear Itself comes to us courtesy of Director Brad Anderson (SESSION 9) and writer Matt Venne who penned the Dario Argento helmed Masters of Horror episode PELTS. Anderson is also a MoH alumnus, having the distinction of directing one of my least favorite episodes of that series, the grating psychological drama SOUNDS LIKE.
In SOUNDS LIKE, the main character went mad because he heard things. In SPOOKED, Eric Roberts plays private detective Harry Bender with enough personal and professional baggage to pack a Greyhound bus. Having been booted off the police force 15-years earlier for extreme brutality, Bender now passes his time, catching cheating husbands and blackmailing his clients. Bender is approached by Meredith (Cynthia Watros) to investigate her own marital problems and sets up surveillance in the abandoned house across the street. But this house has a nasty history inside its walls and Bender is about to find out first hand what lies beneath the surface of this house, and his own psyche is way more than he bargained for.
Anderson and Venne seem on the surface to be giving us a standard haunted house story as the title suggests. Of course the plan here is to twist it up a bit. It’s clear from the get go that Bender isn’t one of the good guys as we witness him beating and slashing a kidnapping suspect (Jack Noseworthy). This fact is made ever more obvious when we later see him blackmail a woman who has hired him to dig up dirt on her husband. When Bender sets up shop in the decrepit home–that looks like a crack house sitting in the middle of BelAir (would this house actually exist in this neighborhood?)–we all know he’s gonna get it in the end. Where the problem lies is that we don’t care. He’s not a likable character in any sense of the word. Even as his backstory unfolds and we witness his inner demons surface, we can’t really forge any sympathy for the prick. It’s a problematic character at best.
It pains me that Brad Anderson has put together such a lackluster episode of FEAR ITSELF after the abysmal SOUNDS LIKE. All the good graces this guy has amassed by directing the intensely claustrophobic SESSION 9 and emotionally exhausting MACHINIST are being rapidly wiped out of my memory. Both of Anderson’s feature films were visually interesting if not splashy. Here the only thing worth looking at is the graffiti that adorns the house with foreboding statements like “Murder” and “Bodies in the Basement”. Actually, the most effecting moments in the film come from the spray-paint images of 4 characters that cover one wall. These images constantly change during the production and foreshadow the fate of people who set foot in the house–acting as sort of a silent Greek chorus sounding a visual death toll for the audience. It’s a very cool concept and the only thing in the film that even borders on frightful.
A film where the best thing about it the CGI set decoration, is hardly something to stand up and cheer for. Venne has shown as a writer that he can put together a gruesome tale in PELTS, but an unlikable main character also populated that film. It worked in PELTS because we were actively routing for Meatloaf to die–and what a spectacular death it was. Here the film is hampered because, we just don’t care about what happens to Bender and since it’s network television we already know he’s not going out like the last guy did. If Venne is going to keep these revenge morality tales going, he might need to soften up the edges a bit more on his lead characters. As for Anderson, the ho-hum delivery of SPOOKED should serve as a sign that this directors talents lie elsewhere and he should seriously consider moving out of Television and back to smaller, intimate and more personal film projects, like the ones that got him these gigs in the first place.
4/10 or 2 Skulls
The 30th edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival commences this week in Montreal, running from July 16 through August 2. It’s set to unleash 125 features and 200+ shorts, from new premieres to festival favorites.
That includes screenings of upcoming theatrical releases Buddy, Colony, Her Private Hell, Hot Spot, and Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, as well as retrospective screenings of Pontypool and Gozu. But so much of the fun of Fantasia is the new film discoveries and surprises, and this year’s fest comes packed with potential.
Here are eight horror movies to keep an eye out for at this year’s fest.
Big Break
New York’s cult comedy darlings Simple Town are carving their way into horror with this comedic feature. In Big Break, Will (Will Niedmann), Caroline (Caro Yost), and Felipe (Felipe Di Poi Tamargo, Blood Barn) reunite with their estranged ex-collaborator Sam (Samuel Lanier) years after their sketch group disbanded, hoping to get in his good graces to appear in the sequel of his hit film. But dark secrets are exposed during their weekend getaway, forcing these washed-up comedians to learn what it really means to kill to get their big break. Art imitating life in a witty horror-comedy sounds like a blast.
Corpus
An invite to a secluded party with his longtime crush and rising film star instead unfurls a strange nightmare of sensual and supernatural proportions. Corrin Evans’ feature debut is set in the summer of 1998, capturing a stylish, transgressive web of seduction and terror. The film stars Jeff Wahlberg (“Euphoria”), Brodie Townsend (“Heartbreak High”), Michael Vlamis (“Pools”), Lily Cowles (Antebellum), Nuha Jes Izman (“Yellowjackets”) and Ching Valdes-Aran (The Equalizer).
Freaks Part II
Final Destination Bloodlines filmmakers Zach Lipovsky & Adam Stein return to their mutant roots with their follow-up to 2018’s Freaks. Picking up several years later, Mary (Amanda Crew, Freaks) and her daughter Chloe (Lorelei Olivia Mote, Riddle of Fire) are on the run from authorities, masking their superpowered abilities and identities. But revenge will complicate matters in a sequel that teases a severe escalation in bloodshed. The Conjuring‘s Lili Taylor also stars.
Junction Row
Canadian horror icon Katharine Isabelle stars as Juno, a recovering addict who leaves a fringe housing compound for a better life, leaving her beloved Ruby behind. When she learns Ruby has gone missing, she discovers Junction Row has been overrun with criminals and something far more horrifying. The creature feature marks the feature debut of director Ashlea Wessel, who co-writes Junction Row with Clown in a Cornfield author Adam Cesare and Matt Serafini.
The Last Temptation of Becky
Becky Hooper (Lulu Wilson) escalates her ultra-violent annihilation of Neo-Nazis with a new CIA mission that sends her to Poland to infiltrate a family of innkeepers who are running a tourist venture at The Wolf’s Lair, Hitler’s WWII bunker. To prevent the Fourth Reich, Becky takes matters into her own bloody hands. Jenn Wexler (The Sacrifice Game, The Ranger) directs this trilogy capper from a script she co-wrote with Matt Angel (The Wrath of Becky), from a story by Angel andSuzanne Coote (The Wrath of Becky). Neil Patrick Harris also stars.
Los Vampires
Lost actor Henry Ian Cusick and Spectre actor Thomas Kretschmann lead as uncanny surrogates for Carlos Villarías and Bela Lugosi in this fantastical fictionalized account of the making of George Melford’s classic horror film, one that was shot overnight on the same sets as Tod Browning’s Dracula. The period horror movie is written and directed by Craig Mitchell (Komodo). Daniela Couso (Serial Beauty), Jefferson Mays (Inherent Vice), Oscar Nuñez (“The Office”), and Jorge Diaz (Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones) round out the cast. Watch the intriguing teaser here.
Rubberhead: The Life & Monsters of Steve Johnson
The wild life and incredible career of SFX wizard Steve Johnson (Fright Night, Poltergeist II, An American Werewolf in London, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master) gets the documentary spotlight from director Nick Taylor. Those familiar with Johnson’s two-book saga Rubberhead: Sex, Drugs and Special FX, which serves as the basis for the documentary, will already know that the artist is a candid raconteur as open about his failures as his successes. Linnea Quigley, John Landis, Tom Holland, and Oscar-winner Bill Corso also contribute as talking heads in this illuminating doc.
Unholy Night
Grandma is back from the dead and ready to commit murder in this holiday horror comedy from writer/director Michael Gabriele. The chaos of an Italian Christmas Eve gets dialed up to a zany, violent degree in the first teaser. Marc Bendavid (“Dark Matter”), Shailene Garnett (“Shadowhunters”), Al Sapienza (“The Sopranos”), Ron Lea (“Orphan Black”), Toni Ellwand (“Hannibal”), Cristina Rosato (Mother!), Jacqueline Robbins (“A Series of Unfortunate Events”), and Joe Pingue (Antiviral) star.
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