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[DVD Review] ‘Soft Matter’ is Gooey Creature Feature Fun
Soft Matter feels like a mashup of two separate ideas that never quite mesh into one coherent story. There’s plenty to enjoy from this debut film from writer-director Jim Hickcox but it tends to be a bit soft in the middle. I’ll be honest, that was a poor attempt at using some fun wordplay with ‘soft’ to convey that the film is a bit uneven. It didn’t quite work, but what’s done is done.
The first idea at play here is that of a pair of scientists or doctors — are all scientists also doctors? — are running some very odd experiments that allow them to keep humans “alive” regardless of their current physical condition. They run these experiments in an abandoned hospital and their patients include some sort of blob and man-like thing that sort of resembles the shape of a human but appears to be trash bags filled with goo. This trash bag goo creatures wears a nice pair of Nike and loves to dance. In one of the film’s most memorable scenes, this thing performs an entire dance routine but is scolded by one of the Dr. Scientists for ruining their best pair of kicks.
Within this mad scientist world, there is also some sort of sea creature living in a bucket of mop water. The creature is apparently some sort of sea goddess that used to have great power in the ocean but is now trapped in this mop bucket. One of the scientists mocks this bucket repeatedly throughout the film. I don’t know why but that scientists hates that bucket.
The other main idea is that of a street artist who is struggling to have his graffiti be taken seriously by the art world. The artist goes by the name of Haircut (Devyn Placide) and his thing is that he likes to paint ghosts using spray paint. They’re basic ghosts, think Pacman. In an effort to boost his credibility his best friend, Kish (Ruby Lee Dove II), suggests a big venue for something truly spectacular. If you guessed the hospital as that venue, you guessed correctly!
Haircut and Kish head to the hospital where Haircut immediately gets to work. While the artist does his thing, Kish wonders the hospital and stumbles upon the experiments. Somewhere along the way, the sea creature living in the bucket full of mop water transforms into this half woman, half fish hybrid that looks to have been inspired by The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Presumably tired from being mocked, the creature proceeds to wreak havoc on the artist crew and the scientists.
My biggest issue with Soft Matter is that I’m not sure why anything happens. Why are the scientists working on these specific experiments? Is it simply to play god? And how does the sea creature figure into all of this? Are they trying to harness her powers? And how in the world was she contained to that bucket for so long? And for the art angle what is the message? Is this some sort or satire? Is it trying to make fun of street artist? Or is it arguing that street artists should be more respected? Maybe it’s not really trying to say anything or the messages are something completely different altogether? Either way, none of it is very clear.
On the plus side, Soft Matter is a lot of fun. Like most horror fans I am a sucker for practical effects and this film has plenty of them. This film gives us two physical creatures that interact and cause havoc. The film also has a really good setting and feel to it. This is a movie that I believe wants you to feel gross and it certainly succeeds. Everything just feels icky within this movie. It’s all one big, oozing, dripping, slimy mess of fun.
Hickcox and his crew certainly have a knack for effects work. Including on the new Soft Matter DVD, recently released by Wild Eye Releasing, is a short film Hickcox directed called Slow Creep. It’s a fun short about a teenage girl eager to watch a horror movie only to have it come to life. It’s a nice nod to the VHS era and while the effects work isn’t as grand as what is done in Soft Matter, it is a lot of fun. Judging from these two films has been extremely intrigued to see what Hickcox does next. Despite the unevenness of Soft Matter, I’m always on board for indie directors with a clear passion for horror and a willingness to get their hands dirty.
Soft Matter is now available on DVD from Wild Eye Releasing and for streaming on Amazon Prime.
There’s something really insidious, in a great way, about setting a horror story in a movie theater. It’s something filmmakers have known for decades, going back to The Blob and beyond, but it never fails to strike a chord because, in a way, it hits us exactly where we feel safest. Seeing a horror movie on the big screen, surrounded by like-minded moviegoers, is a communal experience, one in which everyone screams and laughs together. We are together, and therefore we are much less vulnerable, so when someone punctures that bubble of safety, it’s all the more frightening.
Matinee (also released as Midnight Matinee in some territories) is a movie that understands this from the jump, setting up a stunning opening kill that predates a similar sequence in Scream 2 by almost a full decade. A smart, layered, very stylish Canadian slasher released at the tail end of the 1980s, it’s one of those films that’s spent a lot of time in the dark even among the horror faithful (I’m willing to admit that I hadn’t seen it until recently). Now, a new Kino Cult Blu-ray release is out to change that, and it reveals a slasher essential that, while not perfect, has charm and style to spare.
Two years ago, the Paramount Theater in the small town of Halston closed its doors when, during the theater’s annual horror festival, a young moviegoer was murdered in his seat, mid-movie. Leads in the murder quickly dried up, and the case is cold enough now that the town barely talks about it anymore. Fortunately for local horror fans, that means the Paramount can open again in time for its Halloween horror festival, and they’ve got a hotshot producer (William B. Davis) in town for just such an occasion.
As the festival draws closer, the film introduces us to a variety of characters, including rebellious teenager Sherri (Beatrice Boepple), her boyfriend Lawrence (Jeff Schultz), her overbearing mother Marilyn (Gillian Barber), and the theater’s kindly owner, Earle (Don S. Davis), who’s just hoping he can run a business without more bloodshed. But someone clearly remembers what happened two years ago, and their violent streak is on a collision course with opening night.
Matinee has quite a few things going for it, but what stands out right away, and maintains a consistent grip right up through a wonderful crescendo in the third act, is the film’s visual style. Writer/Director Richard Martin, cinematographer Cyrus Block, and special effects wizard Bob Comer make great use of the film’s limited locations, giving the movie a charming small-town feel reminiscent of Halloween or The Blob while building a self-contained little world inside the theater itself that’ll remind you of films like Popcorn and Demons.
The colors are striking, the framing is clever, and the film clearly has a ball making references to all kinds of other horror cinema moments ranging from The Phantom of the Opera to Friday the 13th. The kills, while relatively sparing with gore, are delivered with style and appropriate tension, creating that sense of unease right in the middle of a place where we as movie fans should be comfortable: The movie theater. Along the way, the Paramount itself becomes a character, and this release definitely dials up its retro splendor.
The Blu-ray upgrade preserves the film’s attention to detail and ambitious cinematography, helping the colors to pop while never letting go of the texture and feel of a relatively low-budget horror film made in Canada in the 1980s. There’s a certain gauziness to many exploitation films of this era, that haloed light you get when the scene is perhaps overexposed just a little too much. It makes the film dreamlike even when it reaches for realism, and Kino Cult’s upgrade preserves that feeling. Throw in a smart script and a whodunit plot that leans heavily into the psychological details of each character, and you’ve got a winner.
There are a couple of things that stick out as slight issues here, including the lack of special features beyond an excellent commentary from film historians and Kino regulars Jason Pichonsky and Paul Corupe. The disc is quite reasonably priced, so it’s not a letdown economically speaking, but I’d love a deeper dive into the film and the Canadian slasher boom in general, particularly for a movie like this that seems to have faded from so many memories, including mine. The sound mix also has some issues, probably left over from previous releases, that might have you playing with your volume settings a little more than you’d like over the course of a 90-minute film, particularly when lines of ADR dialogue crop up.
These are minor concerns, though, and they do nothing to diminish the impact of Matinee, or the joy that’ll come from watching this film for the first time if you’re a slasher devotee in search of something new, or even someone who saw this movie way back when hoping to relive its glories. This is one of those slashers I’ll be talking about with fellow horrorphiles for a long time, and it’s because of this disc.
Matinee is now available on Blu-ray from Kino Cult.
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