NOPE (July 2022)

    

NOPE

(July 2022)

“I will cast abominable filth at you, make you vile, and make you a spectacle.”

--Nahum 3:6

“What if I told you… that in about an hour… you’ll leave here different?”

Just as Us was a different cinematic animal than Get Out, so is Jordan Peele's latest, Nope, a different beast, perhaps even more so.

It isn't the same kind of “social thriller” Get Out and Us most definitely were.

His assertions regarding “the big summer blockbuster spectacle film” and “the violence of attention”? Well, he rather effectively addresses those with Nope…

“Who is gonna go down there and get the star out of his trailer?”

Even more than his two previous films, Peele’s Nope asks its audience to enter it knowing as little as possible and with the least amount of preconceived notions.

Which, admittedly, could be a big ask for some simply because Get Out and Us were so very clearly about Something.

Well, Nope is about Something too, just not in the same way…

Or, you could look at it as Peele choosing to interrogate that Something in a different, more subtle way than his previous efforts.

“We don’t deserve the impossible.”

So let’s just talk about that cast instead, shall we?

Not only do we get some strong, noteworthy performances from the three top billers, Get Out’s Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer (as the Haywood siblings) and Steven Yeun, but the fine character writing by Peele extends even to Brandon Perea’s lovelorn retail jockey, Angel, and to Michael Wincott’s “legendary cinematographer,” Antlers Holst (particularly to the latter).

And speaking of that cast, we also get familiar ¡Qué horror! face Osgood Perkins*, sadly appearing all too briefly as Fynn Bachman.

We even get Donna Mills (Knots Landing, yo!) in the package!

“How exquisitely stupid is that?”

So just trust in the Peele, and go into Nope with as blank a slate as possible, and simply allow yourself to be dazzled by a genre virtuoso who very clearly levels up his filmmaking craft with his latest…

“Nobody f*cks with Haywood, b!tch! Nobody! You hear me?!”

* Peele and Perkins previously worked together on The Twilight Zone’s “You Might Also Like”.

Perkins, of course, has also appeared ‘round these parts for The Blackcoat’s Daughter and I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House.

(I really should get around to catching up on Gretel & Hansel…)

(Nope key art courtesy of impawards.com & bloody-disgusting.com)

 

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2020

The (Premature) Wrap-Up

So.

We really don't need a recap here of what's been going on in TFNY 2020.

We’re all living in the same waking nightmare, after all.

Deep diving into that here seems repetitive and pointless, given that it’s everywhere you look.

This is what I’d like to say here:

I’ve always made it a point at the Iguana to give my ¡Qué horror! recommendations without making any overt references to what’s going on in my personal life.

And that’s because, as far as I’m concerned, we’re here to celebrate horror, and these films and TV shows that get the ¡Qué horror! seal of approval? They’re meant to exist outside of time, to be appreciated today, and years from now, regardless of what’s going on with me.

But, as brutally proven by TFNY 2020, this has been a year of many, many firsts, precious few of them, if any, good.

For the first time, my Watchlist queue has backed up not because I haven’t had the time to sit down and watch something (we have, after all, in TFNY 2020, an overabundance of time, all COVID-melty and oddly exhausting though it may be), but rather because, for the most part, the all-too-real horror happening all around us has been enough for me, thank you very much.

I didn’t need some fictional horror story to narratively induce fear and worry and anxiety because we were all already marinating in that particular stew of dread…

And as October began to loom (October? October?!) and the number of Candidates hadn’t even hit two digits, much less 13, I realized I had little choice but to write this post.

So.

If you’re still in the mood for some ¡Qué horror!-approved horror this fast-approaching Halloween, then please, feel free to consider the 7 Candidates thus far as Finalists this year. (Plus, an additional two-ish; see below.)

In the meantime, I should also say that, at this point, I can’t tell when my current attitude towards horror will shift, or revert back to its usual Lifelong Horrorhead levels.

It will, of course, depend greatly on how TFNY 2020 continues to unfold.

I’d like to think that, every once in a while, I’ll try and make a dent in my Watchlist queue, which continues to lengthen, given my recent neglect of it…

I just don’t know if I’ll be doing the whole ¡Qué horror! Candidate posts thing (as I said, COVID time is oddly exhausting)…

For the time being, I think I’d like to use the Iguana to highlight what’s been keeping me sane these days, and that’s the comics side of my life.

That side has never really been “easy” (and the logistics end of self-publishing comics in TFNY 2020 has become exponentially more difficult), but there’s something to be said about spending time in the headspace of characters who are meant to be inspirational, about writing and telling stories that hopefully move and uplift…

So I’ll continue to make ‘Verse comics announcements here whenever there’s any news (and yes, there should be a ‘Verse post coming up soon-ish), that, I’m certain of.

In the meantime though, to close out this (Premature) ¡Qué horror! 2020 Wrap-Up, two more titles you can safely consider ¡Qué horror! 2020 Finalists…

one of which, I viewed quite a while back…

THE HUNT

(March 2020)

“What is this Avatar sh!t?!”

Director Craig Zobel (who helmed three episodes of The Leftovers, including the pivotal “International Assassin”) reunites with Nick Cuse and Damon Lindelof to gift us with absurdist levels of gory, over-the-top violence in The Hunt.

Despite the premature “controversy” in the wake of the trailer’s initial release, this title insists on equal opportunity ribbing, as shots are taken at both sides of the American sociopolitical divide, with a notable cast that includes Hilary Swank, Betty Gilpin, Emma Roberts, Amy Madigan, Ethan Suplee--as “(Shut the F*** Up) Gary”--and an uncredited Justin Hartley.

“This seems a little obvious, like, like maybe they wanted us to find it.”

“Depends on whether they’re smart pretendin’ to be idiots, or idiots pretendin’ to be smart.”

and the other, one I viewed a lot more recently…

ANTEBELLUM

(September 2020)

“Accept what you are. You are nothin’!”

If you’ve seen the trailer for Antebellum, then I’m spoiling nothing here by saying this:

Whatever the plot mechanics may be as to how the narrative bridges the Civil War and present day scenarios, the film is clearly about race.

And even if you see the trick coming, that doesn’t make Antebellum any less harrowing, opening as it does with a particularly difficult 13-minute section.

As she proved in the second season of Homecoming, Janelle Monáe is a potent lead, but I’d also like to point to both Gabourey Sidibe and Jena Malone, for bringing interesting textures to their supporting roles.

Antebellum is the feature debut of co-writers/-directors Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz, and it’s a provocative first shot.

I’m looking forward to seeing what’s next for the duo…

“This doesn’t end here. We’re nowhere… and everywhere…”

and for the -ish… something I also viewed quite a while back, and it qualified as an -ish since it’s a single episode of a TV series…

Osgood Perkins’ blackly comic, entertainingly biting indictment of human consumerism, “You Might Also Like,” his contribution to the second season of Peele-era The Twilight Zone.

This Perkins-described “bacon-wrapped hotdog” of an episode may not look it at first glance, but the connection the writer/director makes between the particular emotion that so consumes Gretchen Mol’s Janet, and consumerism itself… well, that’s horror right there…

“The Egg will make everything okay again. And this time it will be okay forever.”

So.

There we are.

I truly hope you’re all keeping safe (and sane) out there.

And have a Happy(?) and safe-slash-responsible Halloween, however you choose to celebrate it.

(The Hunt OS’ courtesy of impawards.com; Antebellum OS courtesy of screenanarchy.com.)

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2020

Candidate #5

VIVARIUM

(May 2019)

“Who did that to the poor baby birds?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it was a cuckoo?”

“Why?”

“Because it needed a nest.”

“Why doesn’t it just make its own nest?”

“Because that’s nature. That’s just the way things are.”
“I don’t like the way things are. They’re terrible.”

“Well… it’s only horrible sometimes."

This conversation takes place very early on in Lorcan Finnegan’s sophomore feature, Vivarium.

And as the unsettling opening sequence shows us, it was indeed a ruthless cuckoo--only being true to its nature--that “… did that to the poor baby birds”…

That disturbing opening and the subsequent conversation sets up the film’s scenario, in which Gemma Pierce and her boyfriend Tom (Imogen Poots and Jesse Eisenberg) are drawn by the “strange and persuasive motherf*cker,” Martin (Jonathan Aris) to visit Yonder, a new housing development “just the right distance” away…

And, well… this will not turn out to be their dream home…

You’re home right now.

Quality family homes.

Forever.

--Yonder’s Welcome Sign

Yonder, with its identical model homes and patently fake skies is suburbia as “ideal” (yet terribly bland), inescapable Hell.

It’s the horrifying picture of being trapped in the maddening routine of existence, with only the slimmest of hopes as a possible reprieve from the domestic tyranny of the mortgage, the drip feed, and the hamster wheel.

While you could look at Vivarium as a feature-length Twilight Zone episode that plays far better than any of the ten Season 1 episodes from the recent CBS All Access revival, you could also consider it as a science fiction-tinged expansion of some of Eraserhead’s thematic preoccupations, taking those particular concerns to their disquieting, inevitable conclusions.

“What a lovely sky we have. It is lovely to live under a lovely sky and a lovely house with lovely houses all around us.”

Parting Shot: The writer’s credit for Vivarium goes to Garret Shanley, from a story by Shanley and Finnegan.

The pair also collaborated on Finnegan’s debut feature, Without Name.

That film though, did not grab me in quite the same way Vivarium did…

I am now definitely looking forward to whatever these two get up to next…

(Vivarium OS’ courtesy of screenanarchy.com & impawards.com.)

A Rundown of the 13 Best Horror Movies I've Seen in the Past Year

[9 of 13]

COHERENCE

(September 2013)

"[Coherence] started with a test to see if I could shoot something without a crew and without a script.”
--James Ward Byrkit

Well, let me come right out and say that Mr. Byrkit and company aced this test.

The set-up’s simple: a group of friends get together for a dinner party, on the night that Miller’s Comet passes.

And what Byrkit and his cast manage to improv out of a limited budget, notecards, and short character descriptions is an exquisite Twilight Zone Chinese puzzle mindf*ck feature debut.

To say any more would be to say too much…

Seriously.

“We are visitors.”

--Em

(Coherence OS’ courtesy of impawards.com & kickassmovies.so.)

¡Qué horror! 2014

Candidate #9

COHERENCE

(September 2013)

"[Coherence] started with a test to see if I could shoot something without a crew and without a script.”
--James Ward Byrkit

Well, let me come right out and say that Mr. Byrkit and company aced this test.

The set-up’s simple: a group of friends get together for a dinner party, on the night that Miller’s Comet passes.

And what Byrkit and his cast manage to improv out of a limited budget, notecards, and short character descriptions is an exquisite Twilight Zone Chinese puzzle mindf*ck feature debut.

To say any more would be to say too much…

Seriously.

“We are visitors.”

--Em

(Coherence OS’ courtesy of impawards.com.)

¡Qué horror! 2013

Candidate #20

+1

(March 2013)

“So. I have many surprises in store for us tonight. Enjoy the festivities.”

Director Dennis Iliadis storms back into ¡Qué horror! territory with +1, where David (Rhys Wakefield) and his friends find themselves at the strangest party ever.

Bill Gullo pens the screenplay here, from a story by Iliadis, and it isn’t really spoiling much to say that the film takes an intriguing angle on the idea of the doppelgänger (you’ll gather as much from both the trailer and the blurb--courtesy of Evan Dickson of bloody-disgusting.com--on the one sheet).

Layered and disturbing like a particularly excellent Twilight Zone tale, +1 is another solid title from Iliadis.

“May your good health be twofold.”

(+1 OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

ON THE LOT
Episode 9
Horror Night

As seemed pretty evident from last week’s batch of films, David ended up getting the least number of votes, and was sent home.
Personally, I always found a certain lack in David’s films. They weren’t awful like most of Hilary’s efforts, but they didn’t quite have that “Ooomph” that the work of the more talented and creative contestants display.

Now, a quick word before I run down this week’s shorts.
I found this batch sadly underwhelming, and this is quite possibly because it was Horror Night, and anyone who knows me or has read the reviews here at the Iguana, know I’m a certified horror geek.
As such, I was looking forward to tonight, but at the end of it all, there just wasn’t a single conceit that was particularly inventive. The shorts towards the top of my list are there on the strength of a particular scene or because of the film’s execution, and not because there was anything new in them.
I hope you all understand…

MY FAVORITE: Sam Friedlander’s “Anklebiters”
It’s got a simple premise: a new vicious species attacks a boy in the dead of night.
The strength of “Anklebiters” lies in the attack sequence, which is shot and edited well, ratcheting up the tension and suspense as any good creature feature should. And the child actor was effective as well.
I’m just not sure about the opening voice-over, which is borderline hokey-jokey, when I feel it should have been more Twilight Zoney. And the short’s punchline (or “tag,” as guest judge Eli Roth calls it) did lack some, er, bite.
But we still love ‘ya, Sam! (And try and smile a little more, dude; that should get you some more votes…)

Shira-Lee Shalit’s “Open House”
A young, expecting couple view an apparently haunted house.
This one is near the top of this week’s list because that scene in the nursery with the pregnant woman and the ghost was disturbing and very effective. But as Garry Marshall pointed out, there really wasn’t any conflict. The short is pretty much, set-up, killer scene, then bam, the couple is safe by their car.
But, as Eli Roth said, that tag was nice…

Mateen Kemet’s “Profile”
Okay, this one had balls. Mateen takes an everyday horror (the fear an individual of colour has of the police) and presents us with some of the most graphic scenes to emerge from On The Lot thus far.
I get what Mateen was saying, and like I said, I commend him for his cojones, but the fact that it was all a personal dread of the main character (though part of “Profile”’s point) just smacks of those horror movies that don’t quite pull off the whole “Oh, it was all just a dream” thing.
And the final pull-away till we see the entire planet doesn’t quite drive the idea—that this is horror happening everywhere—home in a particularly effective manner.

Andrew Hunt’s “Midnight Snack”
Even monsters get the midnight munchies…
Honestly, I’m surprised Andrew ended up in the lower half of this week’s list, but this one just didn’t do it for me.
Yeah, there were some creepy shots, particularly of the female ghost, but they were plainly influenced by Asian horror, complete with contortions and ghost revealed in ordinary, innocuous location (this time, it’s a coat rack).
And ultimately, it wasn’t particularly horrifying.

Kenny Luby’s “The Malibu Myth”
A couple set out to see whether there is any truth to “The Malibu Myth,” of people who disappear along a stretch of road; people who were purportedly irradiated, turning them into flesh-eaters.
This one just reeked too much of those current Hollywood horror films that are ransacking the feel and atmosphere of extreme 70’s horror classics like Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes, and not taking any significant steps beyond that.
Having said that, this is, though, Kenny’s best effort to date, and is a good step towards some clarity and a traditional narrative. (Like the saying goes, you need to know the rules first, before you can break them, and I’d like to know that Kenny can first tell a story well, before he gets all whacked out and experimental cinema on me.)

MY LEAST FAVORITE: Jason Epperson’s “Eternal Waters”
A mother grieving for her drowned son is about to face a real-life horror, and a supernatural truth.
Though the shot of the kid in the water-filled coffin was effective, this one is ultimately predictable and not particularly scary. (At least, it wasn’t an Un-Favorite.)

So there you have it. My reactions to Horror Night.
And though Jason’s effort was my least favorite this week, I think he’s got a voting following.
Meanwhile, Kenny might have been in trouble if he’d stayed in his usual mode, but he delivered what is one of the current understandings of cinematic horror in this day and age, so he should be safe.
Which could mean Mateen may be done for, if the viewing audience finds his provocative and in-your-face definition of horror a little too much for their sensibilities. On the other hand, he could have a voting following too, in which case, everything’s all up in the air, and the next director to leave The Lot is anyone’s guess.

As I mentioned above, this week’s guest judge was Eli Roth, whose Cabin Fever I really, really, really love, a film which definitely proclaimed there was a new voice in cinematic horror that demanded to be listened to.
And though my love for Hostel is not as all-encompassing and complete as the one I feel for Cabin Fever, it is still nonetheless a smart, sly, savage, and well-directed piece of gorno and I’m so looking forward to seeing Hostel II, hoping that Roth can somehow pull it all off without the film being an exercise in misogyny (and with three female protagonists being tortured in some perverse commercial enterprise, that seems to be a very real possibility).

Next week: shorts based on the key phrase: When Two Worlds Collide.

(Contestant image courtesy of thelot.com; Eli Roth image on the set of Hostel II, courtesy of twitchfilm.net.)