YELLOWJACKETS Season 1 (November 2021)

YELLOWJACKETS Season 1

(November 2021)

“Something's coming.”

Now here’s a recipe:

 
Take a couple of chunks of Lost; the first, a plane crash; the second, a narrative timeline sliced into two, where we toggle back and forth between the crash and the mysteries and horrors of its direct aftermath, and 25 years later, where we see the survivors still dealing with all their shared, secret trauma.
Oh, and maybe grab some handsful of possibly supernatural craziness from Lost as well, and sprinkle that all over.
 
Then take a chunk of Lord of the Flies, and gender-reverse it, as we witness the trials and terrors of a girls’ high school soccer team who spend over a year and a half(!) out there in the wilderness doing shuddery, unimaginable things in order to survive.
 
Take a number of stand-out established actresses (Tawny Cypress, Melanie Lynskey, Juliette Lewis, and Christina Ricci) and cast them as the adult survivors, then take a number of young and very capable up-and-comers--among them Jasmin Savoy Brown (The Leftovers and the current Scream) and Liv Hewson (Santa Clarita Diet)--to fill out the teen roles, some of which are of course, the younger versions of the aforementioned established actresses.
 
Then take a whole bunch of suh-weet needle drops and sprinkle those around too, and what you get, is Yellowjackets.
 
“Of course that’s how it ends. That’s all we are the whole time. It doesn’t matter; we’re just shells with nothing inside.”
 
The feeling has gone, only you and I
It means nothing to me
This means nothing to me
Oh, Vienna
--“Vienna”
     Ultravox
 
So yeah, on the way to Nationals, the Wiskayok Yellowjackets’ plane crashes in the depths of the Canadian wilderness, the inciting incident of this compelling and compulsive series, which, thanks to that dual timeline, is both a brutal and twisted coming-of-age tale, and an examination of women creeping up on middle age whose lives’ trajectories were forever altered all those years ago, out in those deep, dark woods.
 
And, just to assure you, lest you start to think this is all doom and gloom, let the records show that Yellowjackets has a sense of humor.
Sometimes dark and bleak and black, other times absurd yet somehow still emotionally resonant.
So yes, there are laughs, in betwixt the secrets and the mysteries, the blackmail and the blood and the… ummm… disturbing diet these girls may have had to resort to in order to survive.
And, speaking of surviving, that’s one of the key mysteries that drives the narrative: who exactly survived long enough to get rescued, and what exactly did they have to do to make it out of there.
 
“We won’t be hungry much longer.”
 
And if you bore me,
You lose your soul to me…
--“Gepetto”
     Belly
 
And did I mention the needle drops?
Aside from the ones that get quoted here, you can also savor tracks by Liz Phair, Kim Wilde, The Prodigy, Portishead, and Dinosaur Jr.
Yum!
 
And that theme song!
“No Return” indeed!
Brought to us by Craig Wedren and Anna Waronker (who also score the show), and wedded to that disturbo found footage credits sequence!
Chef’s kiss!
 
“I know what I saw. I don’t know what it meant… but I know I saw something. Something was out there with us.”
 
I think it’s strange you never knew…
--“Fade into You”
    Mazzy Star
 
So if all that smells enticing, then hey, you’re cordially invited to this scrumptious mystery box feast, with the Pilot episode directed by Karyn Kusama, and the season finale by Eduardo Sánchez, both names that have graced the ¡Qué Horror! Archives.
Kusama gave us The Invitation, while Sánchez was at the helm of ¡Qué horror! 2010 title Seventh Moon, 2012’s Lovely Molly, and the pre-online ¡Qué horror! Altered.
 
And don’t worry, ‘cause the show’s been renewed for a second season, so we’re at least assured of still more hijinx beyond the kookoo bananas craziness of this wondrously glorious first season.
Goooooo, Yellowjackets!
 
“What? There’s no book club?!”
 
Oh help me Jesus,
get through the storm.
I had to lose her –
to do her harm.
I heard her holler.
I heard her moan.
My lovely daughter –
I took her home.
--“Down by the Water”
     PJ Harvey
 
Parting Shot:
Yellowjackets has just received two nominations at this year’s Writers’ Guild Awards, for Drama Series and New Series.
Competition is stiff in both categories, so we’ll just have to see how things turn out on March 20, when the winners are announced.
 
Yellowjackets also gobbled up two nominations at this year’s Critics Choice Awards, one for Best Drama Series, and the second for Best Drama Actress (Lynskey).
Competition is likewise stiff over there, so we shall see on March 14 how the Critics Choice Association vote…
 
For what it’s worth, once more: Goooooooo, Yellowjackets!
 
“What if the truth is just that we’re all f*cked in the head from what happened to us?”
 
(Yellowjackets key art courtesy of amazon.com.)

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2012 [10 of 13] The Eduardo Sánchez Slot

A Rundown of the 13 (plus) Best Horror Movies I've Seen in the Past Year
[10 of 13]
The Eduardo Sánchez Slot

Yes, Sánchez appears on one title as director, and on the other as producer, but hell, it’s still Sánchez, and these two films are still amazing…

So...

LOVELY MOLLY

(September 2011)

Once again, Eduardo Sánchez directs the sh!t out of material born from his fruitful collaboration with co-writer Jamie Nash; they worked together on both Altered and Seventh Moon.

This time out, it’s Lovely Molly, where Molly Reynolds (Gretchen Lodge, in her impressive feature film debut) returns to her childhood home with her brand new husband, to make a go at a brand new life, only to have the terrible ghosts of her troubled past rise and eclipse her married existence.

Lodge, whose background lies in London theatre, acts the sh!t out of this one, too, as does Alexandra Holden, who plays Molly’s sister, Hannah.

I really shouldn’t say too much about Lovely Molly, other than perhaps, it’s about (among other things) the ugly malevolence of transgressions, both past and present.
The fact that Johnny Lewis--who played Molly's husband, Tim--died late last month under violent and tragic circumstances makes the effect of this title even more potent today.

MIDNIGHT SON

(July 2011)

Let’s get down to brass tacks: writer/director Scott Leberecht’s debut feature, Midnight Son, is an excellent vampire film, the sort of atypical bloodsucker title that I’ve always been predisposed to.

As with Tomas Alfredson’s Låt Den Rätte Komma In, the centerpiece of Midnight Son is a burgeoning relationship between a human and a vampire, though in this case, it’s a decidedly adult relationship. There’s also the added complication of the vampire (Zak Kilberg’s Jacob) not even knowing what it is he’s becoming exactly.

There are muted strains of body horror in this, as Jacob gradually succumbs to the bizarre urges that are consuming him, which then neatly segue into vampirism as metaphor for addiction.

This may be the kind of vampire film that isn’t for everyone, but as I said before, I’m a (heh) sucker for atypical vampire films.

And let’s face it, these days, any vampire that doesn’t do the whole Sparkle Motion thing, that’s instantly a big plus in my book.

In addition, this has got Eduardo Sánchez (whose Altered, Seventh Moon, and as indicated above, Lovely Molly I love) as one of its executive producers, and as I’ve clearly found myself to be predisposed to Sánchez’s post-Blair Witch films, it made putting Midnight Son up here an awesome doubleplusgood.

Parting shot: Speaking of doubleplusgood, I’m also so looking forward to what Leberecht chooses to direct next, as well as, and I've mentioned this before, Sánchez’s Bigfoot movie, Exists.

(Lovely Molly OS courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com; Midnight Son OS' courtesy of shocktillyoudrop.com & aintitcool.com.)

¡Qué horror! 2012

Candidate # 28

LOVELY MOLLY

(September 2011)

Once again, Eduardo Sánchez directs the sh!t out of material born from his fruitful collaboration with co-writer Jamie Nash; they worked together on both Altered and Seventh Moon.

This time out, it’s Lovely Molly, where Molly Reynolds (Gretchen Lodge, in her impressive feature film debut) returns to her childhood home with her brand new husband, to make a go at a brand new life, only to have the terrible ghosts of her troubled past rise and eclipse her married existence.

Lodge, whose background lies in London theatre, acts the sh!t out of this one, too, as does Alexandra Holden, who plays Molly’s sister, Hannah.

I really shouldn’t say too much about Lovely Molly, other than perhaps, it’s about (among other things) the ugly malevolence of transgressions, both past and present.

¡Muchas gracias, Señores Sánchez-Quiros y Nash! Estoy muy entusiasmado con la película pie grande. (Or something like that.)

(Lovely Molly OS courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com.)

¡Qué horror! 2012

Candidate # 25

MIDNIGHT SON

(July 2011)

Let’s get down to brass tacks: writer/director Scott Leberecht’s debut feature, Midnight Son, is an excellent vampire film, the sort of atypical bloodsucker title that I’ve always been predisposed to.

I waffled a bit on this, since the “horror” isn’t as apparent in it as in other ¡Qué Horror! candidates, and I thought I’d sneak this out of the ¡Qué Horror! madness (as I’ve done this year with titles like Steven C. Miller’s The Aggression Scale). Ultimately though, this is a horror movie (at least, to my way of thinking it is), so here it is, an official ¡Qué Horror! 2012 candidate.

As with Tomas Alfredson’s Låt Den Rätte Komma In, the centerpiece of Midnight Son is a burgeoning relationship between a human and a vampire, though in this case, it’s a decidedly adult relationship. There’s also the added complication of the vampire (Zak Kilberg’s Jacob) not even knowing what it is he’s becoming exactly.

There are muted strains of body horror in this, as Jacob gradually succumbs to the bizarre urges that are consuming him, which then neatly segue into vampirism as metaphor for addiction.

This may be the kind of vampire film that isn’t for everyone, but as I said before, I’m a (heh) sucker for atypical vampire films.

And let’s face it, these days, any vampire that doesn’t do the whole Sparkle Motion thing, that’s instantly a big plus in my book.

In addition, this has got Eduardo Sánchez (whose Altered and Seventh Moon I love and reviewed here at the Iguana, and whose Lovely Molly I’m so looking forward to) as one of its executive producers, and as I’ve also found myself to be predisposed to Sánchez’s post-Blair Witch films, it made putting Midnight Son up here an awesome doubleplusgood.

Parting shot: Speaking of doubleplusgood, I’m also so looking forward to what Leberecht chooses to direct next, as well as Sánchez’s Bigfoot movie, Exists.

(Midnight Son OS courtesy of shocktillyoudrop.com.)

ALTERED (Review)

ALTERED
(Review)

Brought to us by the Eduardo Sánchez half of the directing duo behind The Blair Witch Project, Altered kicks off with a night-time hunt conducted by three rednecks, who manage to bag their quarry, something that is definitely not a regular animal.
What happens from that point onward, as well as the pivotal event that set all of this in motion, informs the rest of Altered, a very effective, old school, low-budget science fiction/horror movie that, though marginally flawed, plays so much better than Project.
For one thing, we’re actually given real, significantly more substantial characters to consider, and that makes a world of difference.

Jamie Nash’s script (from a story by Nash and Sánchez) effectively paints a group of once-friends, all still tied together by their traumatic past. Think something along the lines of Sleepers, but with a genre bent, with some freakiness and gore thrown in for good measure.
Nash puts together a script that keeps the thrills at just the right pitch, while simultaneously giving us the impression that that singular moment in these men’s shared past has indeed affected the trajectory of their very lives, and is the sole reason that has brought them here, to this night which we see chronicled in Altered.

Additionally, the performances--by Without A Trace’s Adam Kaufman, October Road’s Brad William Henke, Project’s Mike C. Williams, Paul McCarthy-Boyington, and Catherine Mangan--are commendable, more honest and textured than your average genre movie, with the rapport of the principals palpable on the screen.
Sánchez also keeps the mystery intriguing and involving, as the narrative gradually unwinds, slowly letting us in on exactly what’s going on, as well as what went on, a decade and a half ago, that brought us to this very moment. He also gamely proves that he can do wonders with an actual script and not some gimmicky combo of shaky cam and clever marketing.


As much as I enjoyed Altered though, it’s still not all goodness and light.
There are moments when, in the stalwart aim of keeping the tension going, the film’s principal setting--a house--seems to be far larger than it should be, as individuals (and other things) seem to lose themselves for varying stretches of running time.
The narrative also has the annoying tendency of having things go from bad to worse because of dumb-a$$ decisions. Granted, they’re not the sort of decisions made out of stupidity, but rather those made based on emotion, but when they happen repeatedly, the distinct urge to yell at the on-screen idiots is difficult to keep a lid on.

Still, when all is said and done, Altered is a neat little genre trip that’s worth your time and attention, something to perhaps occupy your time while we all await Sánchez’s follow-up, Seventh Moon, starring Amy Smart, and again written by Jaime Nash.

There’s also The Objective to look forward to, the new film from the Daniel Myrick half of Project.
Hopefully, both movies will be as good--or even better--than this one.

(Altered DVD cover art courtesy of amazon.com; image courtesy of blogcritics.org.)