FRESH (March 2022)

FRESH

(March 2022)

You are an obsession

I cannot sleep

I am a possession

Unopened at your feet…

-- “Obsession”

     Animotion

“You do not need a man, okay? Or anybody, for that matter. It’s just… the way we’ve been raised since f*ckin’ Disney movies.”

“Yeah. F*ck Ariel.”

“F*ck her. Stupid b!tch left the whole sea for a man. Come on, now.”

Noa (Daisy Edgar-Jones) is definitely not a skilled player at the dating game, so much so that she tells herself she’s “very okay with” being alone.

But then…

One meet-cute at the grocery later, and “cute” and “funny” Steve (Sebastian Stan) is suddenly in her life.

Despite initial appearances and that opening stretch of pre-credits runtime though, this isn’t some random rom-com--that key art should be the tip off, right?--and Noa will ultimately have even more reasons to hate dating… if she survives “cute” and “funny” Steve’s attentions…

“… if it’s done right… it’s f*cking exquisite. It’s like nothing you’ve ever had before…”

Fresh is director Mimi Cave’s feature film debut, off a script by Lauryn Kahn, and this was a surprisingly gruesome title, with some serious teeth.

And a number of… wait for it… dance montages!

Plus the Yeah Yeah Yeahs burning up the end credits roll…

What more can you ask for?

This is some seriously twisted sh!t, no lie, so be prepared…

“You know how I knew you were special? ‘Cause you’re f*cked up, too.”

I feed you, I drink you

By day and by night…

I need you, I need you

By sun and candlelight

-- “Obsession”

     Animotion

(Fresh key art courtesy of impawards.com.)

CANDYMAN (August 2021)

CANDYMAN

(August 2021)

“Are you ready for the sacrament?”

The early ‘90’s pre-Scream period saw cinematic horror do some interesting things, like masquerade under the guise of tragic, inevitably doomed romances, its darker, malevolent streak secreted beneath the more palatable facades of love stories.
One such notable title is Francis Ford Coppola’s exquisite phantasmagoria, Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992).
Another from the same year, is Bernard Rose’s Candyman.
 
“It was the projects. Affordable housing that had a particularly bad reputation.”
“You would never know.”
“Yeah, because they tore it down and gentrified the sh!t out of it.”
“Translation: White people built the ghetto, and then erased it when they realized they built the ghetto.”
 
Adapted from Clive Barker’s Books of Blood short story, “The Forbidden,” Rose’s Candyman transplanted the narrative’s action from England’s council estates to America’s housing projects, grafting themes of racism and gentrification (among others) onto the source material, like wallpaper of a very particular pattern laid over the original story’s structure.
Nia DaCosta’s Candyman has these same preoccupations, serving as both a deeper exploration of the original adaptation’s thematics, as well as a continuation of its central narrative.
 
“Some of the things that have happened in Cabrini over the years, violence just so extreme, so bizarre… It’s almost as if violence became the ritual.
“The worst part… the residents are afraid to call the police. A code of honor perhaps, fear of the police themselves…
“The easy answer is always, ‘Candyman did it.’”
 
DaCosta’s story (the screenplay is credited to her and co-writers Jordan Peele and Win Rosenfeld) revolves around Yahya Abdul-Mateen II’s Anthony, an up-and-coming artist badly in need of inspiration, which he finds in the gruesome urban folklore tale of the Candyman.

“I am the writing on the walls. I am the sweet smell of blood on the street. The buzz that echoes in the alleyways.”
 
Now, as is usual ‘round these parts, I’ll refrain from saying anything more in terms of the plot.
What I believe I can say though, is, just as Rose’s Candyman, despite appearances, didn’t play the way a “regular” slasher film does, neither does DaCosta’s.
And though there is a romantic component to the narrative, it isn’t as central as it was in Rose’s original, which was decidedly a love story, about the love between man and woman, between killer and victim, between deity and worshipper.
DaCosta’s take is more interested in community and legacy and who has ultimate control over society’s grand narrative, pulling its camera back so its lens can take in more of the macro, as opposed to the personal intimacy Rose’s dark love story evinced.
 
“When something leaves a stain, even if you wash it out, it’s still there. You can feel it, a, uh, uh, uh, uh, a thinning, deep in the fabric.
“This neighborhood got caught in a loop! The sh!t got stained in the exact same spot over and over ’til it finally rotted from the inside out!”
 
Ultimately, this new Candyman is a worthy successor to Rose’s original adaptation, and like it, is the kind of horror I treasure, the kind that has Something to say.
And DaCosta and company say it very well indeed…
So if this all sounds like horror to suit your tastes as well, then by all means, check it out…
 
And, oh yes…
Say his name…
 
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, who can take tomorrow,
Dip it in a dream,
Separate the sorrow and collect up all the cream?
Dip it in a dream,
Separate the sorrow and collect up all the cream?
The Candy Man…
The Candy Man can…”
--“The Candy Man”
   Sammy Davis Jr.

Parting Shot: Since the art world also plays a central role in its narrative, Velvet Buzzsaw makes an excellent double feature with this particular Candyman.

  
(Candyman OS’ courtesy of impawards.com.)

DANIEL ISN’T REAL (March 2019)

DANIEL ISN’T REAL

(March 2019)

 “I had an imaginary friend when I was a kid. Umm… his name was Daniel, and he was my best friend. He was my only friend, really.”

The first nine minutes or so of Adam Egypt Mortimer’s Daniel Isn’t Real establishes just how pivotal the titular imaginary friend is in the life of Luke (Halloween’s Miles Robbins), and despite what he says to his therapist, what we see in those nine minutes is most definitely not, “… just, you know, kid stuff.”

Mortimer first made a significant impression on my geek radar with his comic book collaboration with Darick Robertson, Ballistic, so when time came for his feature directorial debut, Some Kind of Hate, I paid attention.

And continue to do so.

With his sophomore effort, co-written with Brian DeLeeuw (as Some Kind of Hate was)*, he’s again made me so happy I have.

As always, I am loathe to give too much away here at the Iguana, so let’s just say that the crux of Daniel Isn’t Real is the true nature of the imaginary friend, as played by Ah-nuld’s offspring, Patrick Schwarzenegger.

Is he really all in Luke’s troubled head? Or is there something darker involved here?

Check it out to find out!

Parting Shot 1: This one’s another ¡Qué horror! winner from SpectreVision, so Yay, Frodo!

Parting Shot 2: For any X-Philes out there, Robbins also played the teenaged William in a number of Season 11 episodes.

Parting Shot 3: For any Some Kind of Wonderful fans out there, Watts herself, Mary Stuart Masterson is here, as Claire, Luke’s troubled mother.

Parting Shot 4: Among those thanked at the tail end of the credits roll?

The Grant Morrison, as well as Kristan, and… Mr. NOBODY (who may or may not be the one from Doom Patrol… who knows?)…

“It was quite a spectacle, wasn’t it? All that blood…”

(Daniel Isn’t Real OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

* Though unlike Some Kind of Hate, which seems to have been written for the screen, Daniel Isn’t Real is based on DeLeeuw’s novel, In This Way I Was Saved.

POSSESSOR (January 2020)

POSSESSOR

(January 2020)

“I’m just here to fix your head.”

Brandon Cronenberg is back with the elegantly savage and caustic Possessor (released as Possessor Uncut), which finds Andrea Riseborough’s Tasya Vos up to her eyeballs in ruthlessly sinister corporate shenanigans.
Hi-tech assassination, murder by remote control, as Vos “interfaces” with a carefully vetted patsy, using their entire body to rather violently bump off whoever’s on her kill list.

Now…

To paraphrase Jennifer Jason Leigh’s Girder: “Consider (the face of) Colin Tate,” as played by Christopher Abbott, familiar to these parts from Trey Edward Shults’ It Comes at Night and Nicolas Pesce’s Piercing.
Abbott’s Colin is said patsy for Vos’ next job, which, wouldn’t you know it, goes horribly sideways…

“You might find this uncomfortable, but you just need to try to keep breathing.”

It’s been 8 years since the younger Cronenberg debuted on the feature stage with Antiviral, but he’s back with a whopper, which has a lot on its menu.

Some of the main courses: the gradual reduction--and inevitable corrosion--of identity through technology, and the interchangeability--and ultimate disposability--of the flesh.

All that, and it’s bolstered by a solid cast (you did see those names up there, right?).

So, check it out if it sounds like it falls neatly into your regular cinematic diet.

One more thing:
While we won’t be returning to the regular annual ¡Qué horror! rundown stylings of the Long Ago anytime soon, this is still technically ¡Qué horror! (or the closest thing we’ve got to it for now), so, viewer advisory: also on the menu--a side order of frank sexual imagery and liberal dollops and spatters of ultraviolence.

It was, after all, released as Possessor Uncut.
You’ve been warned.

“Do you ever think of your wife as a predator? Hmm? Do you ever think of her that way?”

(Possessor Uncut OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2019

Candidate #20

BRIGHTBURN

(May 2019)

“Maybe we need to talk to somebody. He needs, uh, like a, specialist.”

“What?! And say what to ‘em?”

“I don’t know!”

“‘Hello, this is our son. We found him in a f*cking spaceship in the woods. Now what?’

“No! We should have done something a long time ago! This is on us!”

The above quote shouldn’t be a spoiler for anyone who’s seen Brightburn’s trailer. Hell, even the one sheet gives the game away.

Take The Bad Seed, the idea that a child can be a scheming, conniving killer, and graft some spandex superhero origin story onto it, and you get Brightburn.

Or, to use 21^st century Hollywood pitchspeak, it’s Superman as an evil child horror movie.

What if a loving yet childless couple finds an infant under bizarre circumstances?

What if that child (which, after 81 years of conditioning, we’re led to believe will grow up to be a paragon of virtue) turns out not the way we hope or expect?

For longtime comic book readers, this is certainly not a new and novel concept.

But in this day and age of the box office supremacy of superheroes, any story that carries even the whiff of subversion (such as, say, Amazon’s adaptation of The Boys, which doesn’t so much as carry a whiff but reek of it) is certainly welcome, if only to mix things up and offer decidedly different flavours to the cinematic buffet that very quickly tastes all the same, all the time.

And while there is some effective horror and some brief, yet standout gore, what really sells Brightburn are the performances of Elizabeth Banks and David Denman, who play the loving yet childless couple, the Breyers.

Instead of rearing a superhero for the ages though (and through no real fault of their own), they find, to their horror, that their little bundle of joy is anything but.

(Brightburn OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

10 Slots for the Best Horror I've Seen in the Past Year
[9 of 10]

ANNIHILATION

(February 2018)

"Isn't self-destruction coded into us? Programmed into each cell?”

Alex Garland’s Annihilation (based on the novel by Jeff VanderMeer) is heady, horror-tinged science fiction, the kind we need far more than the N^th iteration of some tired SF franchise.

And while some may wonder at its inclusion here, I think it’s quite clear to those who frequent the Iguana that my definition of “horror” has always been very broad, allowing for diverse moods and tastes, from quiet elegance to raucous bombast.

Think of Annihilation as the horror of science, of nature gone horribly awry.

And not in the ‘70’s “animals go wild, nature vs man” schlock cinema sense (though there are flitting shades of that sensibility here), but rather in the sense of the horror of chaos, of the terrible, maddening possibility of having everything we take for granted twisted into unnatural and terrifying shapes.

Garland captures a grotesque beauty here, the awful majesty of seeing the mundane transfigured into the bizarre and the alien, his vision helped along tremendously by the soundscape laid down by Ben Salisbury and Portishead’s Geoff Barrow (the duo also scored Garland’s Ex Machina and Black Mirror’s “Men Against Fire”).

Plus, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Natalie Portman.

Need I say more?

(Annihilation OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2018

Candidate #5

ANNIHILATION

(February 2018)

"Isn't self-destruction coded into us? Programmed into each cell?”

Alex Garland’s Annihilation (based on the novel by Jeff VanderMeer) is heady, horror-tinged science fiction, the kind we need far more than the N^th iteration of some tired SF franchise.

And while some may wonder at its inclusion here, I think it’s quite clear to those who frequent the Iguana that my definition of “horror” has always been very broad, allowing for diverse moods and tastes, from quiet elegance to raucous bombast.

Think of Annihilation as the horror of science, of nature gone horribly awry.

And not in the ‘70’s “animals go wild, nature vs man” schlock cinema sense (though there are flitting shades of that sensibility here), but rather in the sense of the horror of chaos, of the terrible, maddening possibility of having everything we take for granted twisted into unnatural and terrifying shapes.

Garland captures a grotesque beauty here, the awful majesty of seeing the mundane transfigured into the bizarre and the alien, his vision helped along tremendously by the soundscape laid down by Ben Salisbury and Portishead’s Geoff Barrow (the duo also scored Garland’s Ex Machina and Black Mirror’s “Men Against Fire”).

Plus, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Natalie Portman.

Need I say more?

(Annihilation OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2017

Candidate #2

CHANNEL ZERO: CANDLE COVE

(October 2016)

"Do 'ya sense it?

"Something is coming.
"A strange vessel headed for the cove…”

What do you get when you take alumni from Twin Peaks (Harley Peyton) and Hannibal (Nick Antosca), and the son of noted director John Landis (Max), toss them into a wild, creatively horrific blender, then sprinkle the goo that’s left onto a heap of steaming Creepypasta?

You get the highly unsettling Channel Zero: Candle Cove.

This is the kind of TV horror we desperately need, the kind that never forgets that horror isn’t just about jump scares and on-screen gore; that it’s also about tone and atmosphere.

Craig William Macneill (who directed all six episodes) certainly understands this, and now, based on what I saw on Candle Cove, I feel the need to check out his feature, The Boy (the one with David Morse and Rainn Wilson).

This is the first time the post-BSG SyFy has come up with a winner of this caliber. (The fact that Channel Zero isn’t even science fiction, but a horror anthology,  is another conversation entirely.)

So looking forward to Season 2, based on “The No-End House.”

“A fire needs fuel.

“Power demands sacrifice.

“I made mine a long time ago.”

(Channel Zero OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

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

[9 of 13]

KRAMPUS

(November 2015)

"Twisted fairy tale horsesh!t!"

I've talked about this ‘round these parts before, that it’s always a good thing to have go-to holiday movies.
And while there are certain go-to Christmas titles (like Go or Tokyo Godfathers), there aren’t as many go-to Christmas horror titles, except, say, Gremlins, and--but this is a stretch, as far as the horror part is concerned--The Nightmare Before Christmas.

So, thank sweet baby Jeebus for Michael Dougherty’s Krampus!

Right from the slo-mo Mucho Mart opening sequence (orchestrated to Bing Crosby’s “It’s Beginning to Look Like Christmas”), Krampus is a holiday horror delight, as Max (Emjay Anthony) inadvertently calls down the “shadow of Saint Nicholas,” the titular Krampus, who comes “… not to reward, but to punish.”

After giving us the ¡Qué horror! 2010 title, Trick ‘r Treat--which is, as indicated by its title, all about Halloween horror--Dougherty takes very nearly the same general approach, but this time, tipping his horror hat to Christmas, and focusing on a single story.

And while titles like Sheitan and À l'intérieur (Inside) and Calvaire all sport Christmas-set horrors, they’re also definitely not my idea of “fun” holiday horror viewing.

Krampus is.*

And really, how can you resist a movie that has a dog named Thor playing one named Rosie?

“Yeah, but Ben Kuklinski is always ragging on Christmas. He even told the first graders that Santa was just a cheap marketing ploy invented to sell Pepsi.”

“Coke.”

“You know what I mean.”

“But not why you care.”

“Well, someone’s gotta…”

* Having labeled it “‘fun’ holiday horror viewing,” I feel though that I should point out that this one still gets pretty dark in a number of strategic places…

(Krampus OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2016

Candidate #8

KRAMPUS

(November 2015)

"Twisted fairy tale horsesh!t!"

I've talked about this ‘round these parts before, that it’s always a good thing to have go-to holiday movies.

And while there are certain go-to Christmas titles (like Go or Tokyo Godfathers), there aren’t as many go-to Christmas horror titles, except, say, Gremlins, and--but this is a stretch, as far as the horror part is concerned--The Nightmare Before Christmas.

So, thank sweet baby Jeebus for Michael Dougherty’s Krampus!

Right from the slo-mo Mucho Mart opening sequence (orchestrated to Bing Crosby’s “It’s Beginning to Look Like Christmas”), Krampus is a holiday horror delight, as Max (Emjay Anthony) inadvertently calls down the “shadow of Saint Nicholas,” the titular Krampus, who comes “… not to reward, but to punish.”

After giving us the ¡Qué horror! 2010 title, Trick ‘r Treat--which is, as indicated by its title, all about Halloween horror--Dougherty takes very nearly the same general approach, but this time, tipping his horror hat to Christmas, and focusing on a single story.

And while titles like Sheitan and À l'intérieur (Inside) and Calvaire all sport Christmas-set horrors, they’re also definitely not my idea of “fun” holiday horror viewing.

Krampus is.*

And really, how can you resist a movie that has a dog named Thor playing one named Rosie?

“Yeah, but Ben Kuklinski is always ragging on Christmas. He even told the first graders that Santa was just a cheap marketing ploy invented to sell Pepsi.”

“Coke.”

“You know what I mean.”

“But not why you care.”

“Well, someone’s gotta…”

* Having labeled it “‘fun’ holiday horror viewing,” I feel though that I should point out that this one still gets pretty dark in a number of strategic places…

(Krampus OS courtesy of impawards.com.)