To start, we have an '80s-styled throwback serial killer movie...
Summer of 84 (2018)
Not rated
Score: 2 out of 5
Summer of 84 likely would not exist if not for Stranger Things and the 2017 remake of It. While its plot has more in common with Rear Window (and, by extension, its loose remake Disturbia) than anything, in terms of its style it very consciously draws on the same source material that those two stories did, from its '80s suburban setting to its cast of adolescent/teenage characters to its retro poster art to its combination of a kids' adventure movie with a violent horror movie. If only that same love went into the rest of the film. Summer of 84 is little more than a retread of the same territory that its inspirations both old and new went over, packing middling scares, mostly one-note characters, and worst of all, a story that went to the least interesting places it could while I was quietly imaging far more exciting, twisted, and terrifying scenarios in my head. A last-minute attempt to shock went nowhere, and has been done much more effectively in other stories of this type. Overall, it was a largely forgettable film with little going for it beyond its aesthetic.
Set in the town of Ipswich, Oregon in, well, the summer of 1984, the film follows four adolescent boys, the hero Davey, the punk Eaton, the nerd Faraday, and the goofy fat kid Woody, just before the Fourth of July weekend. Davey is convinced that his neighbor, police officer Wayne Mackey, is, in fact, the serial killer who has been stalking the area, claiming fifteen victims, all of them adolescent boys like him and his friends (save for the parents of one who tried to fight him off). While the rest of the gang is initially skeptical, seeing Davey's suspicion of Mackey as a product of the same conspiracy-addled mind that thinks UFOs and Bigfoot are real, his evidence soon becomes impossible to brush off. All the while, Davey takes an interest in the girl next door, his former babysitter Nikki who is heading off to college at the end of the summer while her parents' relationship disintegrates.
What you see is what you get with these characters. Apart from some thin development and "boys doing boy stuff" (playing manhunt, perusing the pages of titty mags) in the first act, they get no real development after that, existing largely as stereotypes that their actors generally don't do much to elevate beyond the writing. The Losers' Club this ain't; none of these kids gave me much reason to care about them. That, more than anything, was the single greatest fault in this movie, as it missed the warmth and humanity of the stories that it was so eager to emulate -- the real reason why films like The Goonies and The Monster Squad are still beloved cult classics well into the 21st century, and why modern audiences flocked to Stranger Things and the remake of It. It felt, overall, like a cargo cult of '80s pop culture, one that wore the aesthetic of the era (the synthwave soundtrack, the fashion, the older technology, the Reagan/Bush '84 lawn signs) and asked audiences "how do you do, fellow '80s kids?" while ignoring the deeper qualities that allowed those pop culture artifacts to stand the test of time. The plot felt like it was going through the motions of how a movie like this is "supposed" to play out, culminating in the film's big twist, which wound up going the safest route it could while ignoring a golden opportunity, one that the film seemed like had been leaning towards, to truly subvert the narrative cliches it was running on and make for a truly wild ride.
There were some things to like here. While the '80s setting may have been little more than a veneer covering for thin writing, it was still clear that a lot of care went into it, however misplaced it might have been. The '80s are still remembered as one of America's most aesthetically creative time periods, such that even those who despise the political and social trends of the era still find a lot to love in its popular culture. (In fact, for many such people at the time, said culture was an escape more than anything.) It produced a very good-looking film that was able to convince me of the authenticity of its setting, technical qualities that also extended to the actual scary moments once they came to the fore. I'm convinced that the makers of this film, the RKSS (Roadkill Superstar) team of François Simard, Anouk Whissell, and Yoann-Karl Whissell (who previously made the similar, but better-received '80s throwback Turbo Kid), still has a good movie in them yet, especially since they didn't write the script that served as this film's Achilles' heel.
Set in the town of Ipswich, Oregon in, well, the summer of 1984, the film follows four adolescent boys, the hero Davey, the punk Eaton, the nerd Faraday, and the goofy fat kid Woody, just before the Fourth of July weekend. Davey is convinced that his neighbor, police officer Wayne Mackey, is, in fact, the serial killer who has been stalking the area, claiming fifteen victims, all of them adolescent boys like him and his friends (save for the parents of one who tried to fight him off). While the rest of the gang is initially skeptical, seeing Davey's suspicion of Mackey as a product of the same conspiracy-addled mind that thinks UFOs and Bigfoot are real, his evidence soon becomes impossible to brush off. All the while, Davey takes an interest in the girl next door, his former babysitter Nikki who is heading off to college at the end of the summer while her parents' relationship disintegrates.
What you see is what you get with these characters. Apart from some thin development and "boys doing boy stuff" (playing manhunt, perusing the pages of titty mags) in the first act, they get no real development after that, existing largely as stereotypes that their actors generally don't do much to elevate beyond the writing. The Losers' Club this ain't; none of these kids gave me much reason to care about them. That, more than anything, was the single greatest fault in this movie, as it missed the warmth and humanity of the stories that it was so eager to emulate -- the real reason why films like The Goonies and The Monster Squad are still beloved cult classics well into the 21st century, and why modern audiences flocked to Stranger Things and the remake of It. It felt, overall, like a cargo cult of '80s pop culture, one that wore the aesthetic of the era (the synthwave soundtrack, the fashion, the older technology, the Reagan/Bush '84 lawn signs) and asked audiences "how do you do, fellow '80s kids?" while ignoring the deeper qualities that allowed those pop culture artifacts to stand the test of time. The plot felt like it was going through the motions of how a movie like this is "supposed" to play out, culminating in the film's big twist, which wound up going the safest route it could while ignoring a golden opportunity, one that the film seemed like had been leaning towards, to truly subvert the narrative cliches it was running on and make for a truly wild ride.
There were some things to like here. While the '80s setting may have been little more than a veneer covering for thin writing, it was still clear that a lot of care went into it, however misplaced it might have been. The '80s are still remembered as one of America's most aesthetically creative time periods, such that even those who despise the political and social trends of the era still find a lot to love in its popular culture. (In fact, for many such people at the time, said culture was an escape more than anything.) It produced a very good-looking film that was able to convince me of the authenticity of its setting, technical qualities that also extended to the actual scary moments once they came to the fore. I'm convinced that the makers of this film, the RKSS (Roadkill Superstar) team of François Simard, Anouk Whissell, and Yoann-Karl Whissell (who previously made the similar, but better-received '80s throwback Turbo Kid), still has a good movie in them yet, especially since they didn't write the script that served as this film's Achilles' heel.
The Bottom Line
It's clear how much the filmmakers loved the time period their movie was set in, but that sadly wasn't enough to make up for its many shortcomings in the writing department. It wasn't a crushingly bad movie by any means, but it's still not a very good one.
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Next up, from Indonesia comes another vintage throwback...
Satan's Slaves (Pengabdi Setan) (2017)
Not rated
Score: 4 out of 5
Stepping back to the '70s instead of the '80s, Satan's Slaves (aka Pengabdi Setan) is a remake of a 1980 Indonesian cult classic, best known in the West for taking a traditional Hollywood religious/Satanic horror storyline and swapping out the Christian imagery for locally-appropriate Islamic imagery. This version of the story follows much the same pattern, with a feel that draws on similar Western retro ghost stories like The Conjuring, Insidious, and Ouija: Origin of Evil, and like the best of those stories, it gets what made them work: a core of slow-burn supernatural horror that develops its characters and slowly ratchets up the tension and the paranormal activity, building up from a moody atmosphere to an over-the-top finale. While a late-game plot twist does get caught up in a number of holes, overall this is a very well-made effort that can easily hang with its inspirations.
Set in 1981, the film follows the family of Mawarni Suwono, an aging former pop singer whose health has been in decline, and given that the royalties from her records have dried up due to her being out of the spotlight, that leaves them in a financially precarious position, having to take care of both a large house and the cost of her medicine. Mawarni soon kicks the bucket, but that is only the beginning, as her four kids -- the adult daughter Rini (who was returning to her childhood home to care for her brothers), the teenage son Tony, the adolescent son Bondi, and the young deaf son Ian -- soon find out, together with their preacher neighbor and his son Hendra, that there was a lot that they didn't know about their mother. Specifically, she had made a deal with the devil in order to have children, the price being that, when the youngest turned seven, the devil would claim him or her as his own. And whaddaya ya know, Ian's seventh birthday is just days away...
Watching this back-to-back with Summer of 84 is almost a Film School 101 lesson in how to do throwback horror wrong versus how to do it right. Whereas that film didn't do much beyond copy the look of its inspiration without much of the substance, this one studies where both its forebears and similarly successful retro horror films did it right and why they are so memorable. Instead of just slathering itself in '70s/'80s Satanic Panic imagery, old-fashioned title fonts, and fake film grain while otherwise indulging in anachronistic modern horror cliches, Satan's Slaves replicates the pacing of those films as well, specifically the buildup across the length of the film that turns up the heat with each reel and saves the best for last. In terms of plot and structure, there isn't much here that breaks from the mold beyond the fact that, as a film from a Muslim country, the characters refer to Iblis and djinn rather than Satan and demons (the title notwithstanding, and in any case the subtitles contextually translate the references to more familiar Christian terms), but this film's commitment to being the best possible version of itself means that it takes a timeworn structure and does it well. This movie is capital-S scary in an old-school way, and it does a damn good job of it.
The characters aren't the deepest, conforming mainly to religious/supernatural horror archetypes -- the cute, innocent heroine, the disbelieving father, the superstitious old lady, the vulnerable child, the preacher who knows what's going on -- and not really doing much to go beyond that, but again, this film takes what could've been tired cliches and does them well. I bought into the family's love for each other, which was important given that said love proves to be vital for rescuing Ian from the devil's plan for him, even if I did wonder why the father wound up sidelined for so long. There is plenty of very creepy imagery here, from the creepy, long-haired ghost women haunting the shadows in the beginning to the ringing of Mawarni's bell indicating that something freaky is about to happen to the umbrella-carrying cultists we see during the climax, and again, while not a lot of it is original, it's still done well enough that I can forgive it. The only point where this film really lost me came during a late-in-the-game plot twist concerning what the devil's goal truly was, which I noticed as contradicting a previously-raised plot point from earlier in the film concerning why Mawarni kept having children. However, given how solid everything else had been before then, I was able to forgive this and enjoy the ride all the way to its outrageous climax.
Set in 1981, the film follows the family of Mawarni Suwono, an aging former pop singer whose health has been in decline, and given that the royalties from her records have dried up due to her being out of the spotlight, that leaves them in a financially precarious position, having to take care of both a large house and the cost of her medicine. Mawarni soon kicks the bucket, but that is only the beginning, as her four kids -- the adult daughter Rini (who was returning to her childhood home to care for her brothers), the teenage son Tony, the adolescent son Bondi, and the young deaf son Ian -- soon find out, together with their preacher neighbor and his son Hendra, that there was a lot that they didn't know about their mother. Specifically, she had made a deal with the devil in order to have children, the price being that, when the youngest turned seven, the devil would claim him or her as his own. And whaddaya ya know, Ian's seventh birthday is just days away...
Watching this back-to-back with Summer of 84 is almost a Film School 101 lesson in how to do throwback horror wrong versus how to do it right. Whereas that film didn't do much beyond copy the look of its inspiration without much of the substance, this one studies where both its forebears and similarly successful retro horror films did it right and why they are so memorable. Instead of just slathering itself in '70s/'80s Satanic Panic imagery, old-fashioned title fonts, and fake film grain while otherwise indulging in anachronistic modern horror cliches, Satan's Slaves replicates the pacing of those films as well, specifically the buildup across the length of the film that turns up the heat with each reel and saves the best for last. In terms of plot and structure, there isn't much here that breaks from the mold beyond the fact that, as a film from a Muslim country, the characters refer to Iblis and djinn rather than Satan and demons (the title notwithstanding, and in any case the subtitles contextually translate the references to more familiar Christian terms), but this film's commitment to being the best possible version of itself means that it takes a timeworn structure and does it well. This movie is capital-S scary in an old-school way, and it does a damn good job of it.
The characters aren't the deepest, conforming mainly to religious/supernatural horror archetypes -- the cute, innocent heroine, the disbelieving father, the superstitious old lady, the vulnerable child, the preacher who knows what's going on -- and not really doing much to go beyond that, but again, this film takes what could've been tired cliches and does them well. I bought into the family's love for each other, which was important given that said love proves to be vital for rescuing Ian from the devil's plan for him, even if I did wonder why the father wound up sidelined for so long. There is plenty of very creepy imagery here, from the creepy, long-haired ghost women haunting the shadows in the beginning to the ringing of Mawarni's bell indicating that something freaky is about to happen to the umbrella-carrying cultists we see during the climax, and again, while not a lot of it is original, it's still done well enough that I can forgive it. The only point where this film really lost me came during a late-in-the-game plot twist concerning what the devil's goal truly was, which I noticed as contradicting a previously-raised plot point from earlier in the film concerning why Mawarni kept having children. However, given how solid everything else had been before then, I was able to forgive this and enjoy the ride all the way to its outrageous climax.
The Bottom Line
It's hardly an original film, but that's kind of the point. It's still a very well-made remix of vintage horror tropes mixed with new-school production values and enough local flavor to provide a new spin, and a film that goes out of its way to entertain and frighten.
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Our third film, a survival thriller from Canada, is probably my favorite film of the night...
What Keeps You Alive (2018)
Rated R for violence including bloody images, language, and brief nudity
Score: 4 out of 5
Until the ending started dragging on for just a bit too long, I was fully prepared to give this movie a 5 out of 5. What Keeps You Alive is a film that takes what, at first glance, might sound like the plot of a sleazy Basic Instinct ripoff and swaps out the lurid sexuality for a vicious, bleak, white-knuckle survival story, grabbing me by the throat from the moment its first big twist took place around the end of act one. An overly long third act was the only thing stopping me from falling unequivocally in love with it, and even then, it only dinged my score from "nearly perfect" to just "really good". Between its beautiful scenery and cinematography, an outstanding minimalist cast, and an unforgettable villain, this is one that definitely left an impact.
We start the film with a married lesbian couple, Jules and Jackie, who have decided to spend their anniversary at a lakefront hunting lodge that Jackie inherited from her father. Hoping for a weekend of hiking through the woods, boating out on the lake, Jackie teaching Jules how to shoot, and some lovemaking to cap it all off, things start going awry when Sarah, a woman who lives across the lake and seems to know Jackie, arrives at the house -- and addresses Jackie as "Karen". A puzzled Jules crosses the lake to Sarah and her husband Daniel's house, and soon finds that she doesn't really know who her wife truly is, most notably when she confronts "Jackie" with this information later. What follows is a nail-biting game of cat-and-mouse that gives the phrase "girl-on-girl action" a whole different meaning.
With such a small cast here -- I literally just named every single person who shows up in this film, major and minor -- it is imperative that every one of them be no less than stellar, and fortunately, with the hero and villain, we got no less than that with Brittany Allen and Hannah Emily Anderson. Allen's Jules is a woman who is clearly outmatched against her opponent, not only in terms of survival skills but also in terms of the fact that she takes a massive beating early on that leaves her at less than 100% for the entire rest of the movie. She truly looks and feels like somebody who's not only fighting for survival, but at the same time grappling with the fact that the love of her life was built on a carefully crafted lie. As great as Allen was, however, the true standout was Anderson as the villain Jackie. A stone-cold sociopath who knows the forest around her lodge and was taught how to hunt by her father -- and revels in doing so -- Jackie is the sort of human monster who could only exist in the movies yet is no less compelling for it, most notably in a chilling scene where she coldly explains to Jules how her utter lack of a soul has only liberated her while Jules' conscience has trapped her. Said soullessness allows her to pivot easily into playing the role of a loving wife and neighbor, be it for Sarah and Daniel when they come over for dinner or for the 911 operator she's rehearsing her call to for when all is said and done. It's actually kind of appropriate how they gave the showier actress the part of the villain, the fact that Jackie is so easily able to cover up her lack of emotion while Jules fails to hide her genuine fear behind a mask of happiness illustrating the difference between the two, and how Jackie has Jules in her grasp for most of the film.
The duel between the two also looks damn good on top of it. Shot in the beautiful Ontario woods, this film looks amazing. We know it's not that isolated, given that we see the two lakehouses in the area, but it still feels like a place where, if you don't know what you're doing, you can easily get tripped up by something you're not prepared for. Low-angle shots emphasize the towering trees, and a chase and fight on the lake uses sweeping drone shots to emphasize the crystal-clear waters. Jules and Jackie's lodge, meanwhile, felt rustic and old-fashioned in a way that allowed the film to transition into more traditional thriller territory with a glossier edge, one that truly framed Jackie as the head bitch in charge as she briefly swaps out the hunting gear for a slinky dress and makeup. One way or another, this was a damn good-looking film, with writer/director Colin Minihan (one half of the directing team of The Vicious Brothers) proving himself adept shooting both a backwoods survival thriller and a more traditional one.
The only point that really dragged the film down was the third act, which, in all honesty, should've been about ten minutes shorter. We start with a brutal moment that could've ended the film on a high note, only for it to be revealed as a false ending as the film is stretched out from there for one final showdown, and while the ambiguous note it ends on was a high point, at some point I was just wondering when the film was going to get to it. The ending could've been heavily rewritten to elevate this film to greatness, combining elements of the false ending and the real one, both of which had things I liked, to produce a true showstopper. As it was, the ending wasn't a fizzle by any means, culminating as it did in a meaty fight to the death, but it could've been sharper and more on-point.
The only point that really dragged the film down was the third act, which, in all honesty, should've been about ten minutes shorter. We start with a brutal moment that could've ended the film on a high note, only for it to be revealed as a false ending as the film is stretched out from there for one final showdown, and while the ambiguous note it ends on was a high point, at some point I was just wondering when the film was going to get to it. The ending could've been heavily rewritten to elevate this film to greatness, combining elements of the false ending and the real one, both of which had things I liked, to produce a true showstopper. As it was, the ending wasn't a fizzle by any means, culminating as it did in a meaty fight to the death, but it could've been sharper and more on-point.
The Bottom Line
The ending aside, What Keeps You Alive is a rough, brutal thriller that uses everything at its disposal to kick my ass, taking what could've been a cheap and trashy story and elevating it into something that comes thisclose to being a classic. Highly recommended.
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And finally, we get the depravity of people being farmed for their flesh to close the night...
The Farm (2018)
Not rated
Score: 2 out of 5
I really don't want to bash on this film. Not only did its director and lead actress have the courtesy to attend the screening and do a Q&A session afterwards, but on a purely technical level, this is a very impressive little movie. Unfortunately, no amount of technical wizardry, gorgeous cinematography, and all-around solid production values (especially given its budget) can save you if you don't have a plot. I'm not just being sarcastic or metaphorical here; there is practically no real plot, characters, or dramatic through line to The Farm beyond a vague animal rights message, its two competing stories of a couple being kidnapped by cannibals and the inner workings of the elaborate "people farm" that they run never being developed beyond the level of subplot. It began life as a short film, and on that front it very much suffers from the same problems that many short films and TV shows suffer from in the translation to feature length, not really knowing how to maintain a narrative for more than about half an hour or so. It's a film whose genuinely good qualities are overwhelmed by its identity crisis.
The problems truly become noticeable in the second act. We start with a young couple from Los Angeles, Alec and Nora, on a road trip through the desert, but once they get captured after making a fateful stop at a former campground-turned-motel to spend the night, they practically vanish from the film for almost the entire second act. Here, we transition into something completely different as our new main characters are the clan of cannibals who run a massive operation where human beings are captured and used as livestock, with every reference to the inhumane practices of factory farming thrown in, most notably with how the women are frequently impregnated to produce milk while their babies are used as veal. Leatherface and his family look like amateurs next to these folks, and we spend quite a bit of time with them, most notably with a dim-witted employee who seems like he can't help but constantly fuck up. However, the film proceeds to transition again back to our original main characters, who are now fighting to escape the farm and its employees wearing creepy animal masks. On the whole, it felt like writer/director Hans Stjernswärd didn't precisely know what kind of film he wanted to make, and it's a shame, because either of these movies could've been something special. On one hand, you have a survival horror movie about people getting farmed and eaten, and on the other, you have an animal rights satire in which all of the abuses of the meat industry are taken and applied to humans. A more adept filmmaker probably could've found a way to merge these two storylines, as Tobe Hooper famously did with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Unfortunately, what we get here is a movie with what feels like nothing but subplots that come together jarringly.
It's made even more painful by the fact that Stjernswärd clearly knew what he was doing behind the camera. The cast is good, the special effects are used sparingly but are quite vicious when they do come, and the cinematography heavily emphasizes the heat, bleakness, and isolation of the desert where the farm is located. The inhumanity of the farm itself is conveyed beautifully, whether it's in the horrors inflicted upon the people trapped within or the callous disregard that their captors have for the lives they're destroying. This film is very difficult to fault on a technical level, making me wish that much more that this effort wasn't all but wasted on a plotless mess of a story, one whose script Stjernswärd probably should've gone over a few more times. I'd be eager to see what kind of film Stjernswärd makes next, because this one proves that he has some talent, an eye for arresting visuals, and a clear knack for working within a tight budget. I just hope that he finds a screenwriting partner.
The problems truly become noticeable in the second act. We start with a young couple from Los Angeles, Alec and Nora, on a road trip through the desert, but once they get captured after making a fateful stop at a former campground-turned-motel to spend the night, they practically vanish from the film for almost the entire second act. Here, we transition into something completely different as our new main characters are the clan of cannibals who run a massive operation where human beings are captured and used as livestock, with every reference to the inhumane practices of factory farming thrown in, most notably with how the women are frequently impregnated to produce milk while their babies are used as veal. Leatherface and his family look like amateurs next to these folks, and we spend quite a bit of time with them, most notably with a dim-witted employee who seems like he can't help but constantly fuck up. However, the film proceeds to transition again back to our original main characters, who are now fighting to escape the farm and its employees wearing creepy animal masks. On the whole, it felt like writer/director Hans Stjernswärd didn't precisely know what kind of film he wanted to make, and it's a shame, because either of these movies could've been something special. On one hand, you have a survival horror movie about people getting farmed and eaten, and on the other, you have an animal rights satire in which all of the abuses of the meat industry are taken and applied to humans. A more adept filmmaker probably could've found a way to merge these two storylines, as Tobe Hooper famously did with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Unfortunately, what we get here is a movie with what feels like nothing but subplots that come together jarringly.
It's made even more painful by the fact that Stjernswärd clearly knew what he was doing behind the camera. The cast is good, the special effects are used sparingly but are quite vicious when they do come, and the cinematography heavily emphasizes the heat, bleakness, and isolation of the desert where the farm is located. The inhumanity of the farm itself is conveyed beautifully, whether it's in the horrors inflicted upon the people trapped within or the callous disregard that their captors have for the lives they're destroying. This film is very difficult to fault on a technical level, making me wish that much more that this effort wasn't all but wasted on a plotless mess of a story, one whose script Stjernswärd probably should've gone over a few more times. I'd be eager to see what kind of film Stjernswärd makes next, because this one proves that he has some talent, an eye for arresting visuals, and a clear knack for working within a tight budget. I just hope that he finds a screenwriting partner.
The Bottom Line
The Farm's good parts made its many bad parts even more disappointing, as it's clear that the people making this had some idea of what they wanted to do, but just didn't know how to pull it off. This is a movie that, without a better script, probably should've just remained a short film.
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