The Unrepentant Cinephile

by Jason Coffman

  November 8:

  Rendel (Finland, dir. Jesse Haaja)

  While pharmaceutical conglomerate VALA ramps up production on a vaccine to send to suffering African countries, a mysterious figure is making trouble for their less humanitarian interests. VALA, as it happens, is a front for a vast criminal organization with its hands in large-scale drug running. When a group of the thugs who work for Rotikka (Rami Rusinen), unstable son of VALA’s president, turn up dead with the word “RENDEL” carved into their backs, it’s up to Rotikka to find the vigilante and kill him before the biggest deal in VALA history is ruined. Is the group of top-tier assassins run by the dangerously unpredictable Radek (Johnny Vivash) up to the job? And just who is this masked man? Rendel is a dark superhero origin film for a character that shares many similarities with Marvel’s The Punisher, although with some noteworthy and somewhat inexplicable differences. When Rendel’s identity is eventually unveiled, it raises a lot of questions that are difficult to overlook. Still, the film at least has a somewhat goofy streak of humor, so it’s tough to argue that it takes itself too seriously. The tonal mismatch between the dark and gritty look of the film and its occasional punch lines makes it tough to get a handle on just what Rendel wants to be. It’s not a great superhero movie, and it completely falls apart if you spend any time thinking about it, but moment to moment there’s plenty of fun to be had here.

  November 9:

  Beyond Skyline (Singapore, dir. Liam O’Donnell)

  Alcoholic cop Mark (Frank Grillo) picks up his son Trent (Jonny Weston) from the police station after he’s gotten into another public altercation, but Mark’s too drunk to drive home. While they’re on a commuter train underground, an alien invasion begins and the two men are forced to team up with train conductor Audrey (Bojana Novakovic) and a ragtag group of fellow passengers, homeless veteran Sarge (Antonio Fargas), and a couple of Mark’s cop friends to face the threat. Through some derring-do and unbelievable luck, they end up in an alien ship that crash-lands in Singapore, where resistance fighter Sua (Iko Uwais) and a group of rebels fight the police force that has gone wild since the invasion began. Mark made some discoveries in the alien ship that give him hope the aliens can be defeated, but it’ll take nothing short of a miracle--and plenty of badass hand-to-hand combat with towering alien foot soldiers backed up by kaiju-sized tank monsters--to save humanity. Just about anybody would probably put Skyline near the bottom of a list of films one would expect to get a sequel, but here we are. Thankfully, Beyond Skyline is a massive improvement on the first film in every conceivable way. It’s hugely ambitious, with fantastic effects that seamlessly meld practical and CG approaches. This is a world away from the housebound action of the first film, which took place largely in one apartment. Grillo delivers a typically solid lead performance, and Iko Uwais and co-star Yayan Ruhian must have had a blast choreographing fights with the alien soldiers. The end of the film sets the stage for an even bigger, wilder third entry in the series before jumping immediately into a fun and hilarious blooper reel that runs under the first section of the end credits. It’s big, loud, slick fun that doesn’t take itself too seriously and doesn’t require a viewing of the first film to make sense. If that’s not a damn near perfect sequel to Skyline (or any other middling indie sci-fi movie), what possibly could be?

  Fantastic Fest 2017: Day 1

  Originally published on Daily Grindhouse 4 October 2017

  The Prince of Nothingwood (France/Germany, dir. Sonia Kronlund)

  Salim Shaheen is a filmmaker in Afghanistan who has made over 100 independent films despite his country’s long history of conflict and strife. Documentary filmmaker Sonia Kronlund travels to Afghanistan to talk to Shaheen and his friends, collaborators, and fans as he shoots his latest film. Shaheen is an extremely charismatic person, and everyone seems to know him from his films, but he’s hardly a celebrity in the Hollywood sense--he wheels and deals to get locations, he’ll hop out of his car to help another car stuck on the road, and he’s had his share of close calls including an incident that killed several of his friends while in the middle of a film production. His tenacity is inspiring, but The Prince of Nothingwood is hardly a puff piece on an unusually large personality. Kronlund contrasts his determination with the horrors that take place on a daily basis in his country, and Shaheen’s wives and daughters are conspicuously absent from the picture (an issue the film addresses directly). It’s utterly fascinating to watch Shaheen at work in such circumstances, and inspiring to see how his simple films bring some little bit of joy to his audiences even in the midst of seemingly endless war.

  The Line (Slovakia/Ukraine, dir. Peter Bebjak)

  The border between Slovakia and Ukraine is months away from closing, and the people who make their living moving contraband over the line find their way of life in danger. Adam (Tomas Mastalir) runs a construction company as a front for his smuggling operation, work that has provided a comfortable living for his family. His longtime partner Jana (Eugen Libezniuk) wants to move into drug smuggling and moving illegal immigrants across the border, and as the closure looms Adam finds himself forced into an uneasy partnership with a local drug lord. As if things weren’t tough enough, his teenage daughter is determined to marry her boyfriend and his wife Sasa (Zuzana Fialová) is becoming uneasy with the family business and the toll it takes on their relationship. The Line is a solid crime drama with a fine cast and some nice character work, but there’s not much to set it apart from other films of its ilk other than its novel setting. Like Darkland (another film that played Fantastic Fest with a familiar story set against a unique cultural backdrop), this film could have spent a bit more time delving into the specifics of its characters’ cultures. There’s a bit of it here, including a riotous protracted wedding reception, but a bit more would have gone a long way toward making The Line something more than just a good crime drama.

  Rift (Iceland, dir. Erlingur Thoroddsen)

  Gunnar (Björn Stefánsson) gets a late-night phone call from his ex Einar (Sigurður Þór Óskarsson), who has holed up in his family’s remote cabin and may be suicidal. Gunnar drives to the cabin to find Einar drinking himself stupid, but otherwise claiming to be fine. Gunnar decides to stay with him for a night to make sure Einar isn’t going to hurt himself, and that night someone tries to break into the cabin. As Gunnar and Einar wander around the barren land and abandoned buildings nearby, they talk through the issues that ended their relationship while trying to puzzle out who or what is stalking them at night. Rift is the second feature from writer/director Erlingur Thoroddsen, following up his debut Child Eater. Where that film was a gruesome, economical creature feature, Rift is a glacially-paced psychological horror film with a thick atmosphere of almost palpable dread. It’s beautifully shot and the two leads give excellent performances, but at nearly two full hours it just takes too long to get where it’s going. Overall that’s a relatively minor complaint, as Rift is as much a thoughtful study of its two lead characters as a horror film. It will be interesting to see where Thoroddsen goes from here.

  Salyut-7 (Russian Federation, dir. Klim Shepinko)

  In June of 1985, the USSR lost contact with their satellite Salyut-7. In a daring and near-impossible mission, they sent two cosmonauts to dock with the dead satellite in hopes of restoring it to functionality and prevent the United States from capturing it. Salyut-7 is a dramatization of the events of this real-life story, a slick, lavish Hollywood-style affair that recalls American studio films like Ron Howard’s Apollo 13. The special effects are astonishing and seamless, the cast is great across the board, and the ticking-clock tension working against the launch of the U.S. shuttle is effective. Director Klim Shipenko expertly stages and executes a number of small, intense set pieces in the claustrophobic confines of the Salyut-7 and the rescue craft--anyone who has a problem with small spaces should give this film a hard pass. Anyone else looking for a handsomely mounted space drama based on actual events will find Salyut-7 well worth their time.


  Vampire Clay (Japan, dir. Sôichi Umezawa)

  After a fire destroys a small school for art college prep, the school moves to a remote cottage in serious disrepair. While cleaning up the area around the cottage, the school’s teacher finds a bag of dried clay buried in the yard. She takes it into the school and the students use it for their sculpting lessons, but this is no ordinary clay. Soon the students and teacher are fighting for their life against a diabolical supernatural menace that can take over their bodies and warp itself and their flesh to its will. Vampire Clay is the feature directing debut of Sôichi Umezawa, an established special effects artist who has been working in the Japanese film industry for twenty-five years. This was obviously a labor of love for Umezawa, a small independent film packed with amazing and imaginative makeup and special effects work. It’s pretty fun when the action kicks in, but that takes a bit longer than it probably should have. The film also has a Return of the King problem where it seems to hit a good point for a solid ending about five times in the final act. Still, while it’s narratively messy and a bit draggy when it gets mired in exposition, Vampire Clay is well worth a look for any fans of old school practical makeup and effects in their horror.

  Fantastic Fest 2017: Day 2

  Originally published on Daily Grindhouse 4 October 2017

  Before We Vanish (Japan, dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa)

  A confused housewife and a skeptical journalist finds themselves in the midst of a stealth invasion of Earth by aliens who possess the bodies of humans. These aliens choose “guides” to help them while they literally steal concepts from the minds of other people: When one of them steals the idea of “family” from a young woman, she reacts in revulsion when her sister tries to give her a hug. The three aliens that have arrived as a scouting party are somehow quickly found out by authorities, who respond by relentlessly hunting them down in hopes of stopping the invasion. But how do you stop an enemy that is an invisible intelligence that can move between bodies at will? And is it already too late? Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Before We Vanish is the legendary director’s return to Japan after his French-language film Daguerrotype, and it’s something of a departure for him in that it features quite a bit of effective humor in addition to its heady sci-fi trappings. It’s probably his funniest film, although there’s not much in the way of competition given how downbeat his work tends to be. There are some exciting action sequences and some really interesting ideas at play here, but the film is far too long and it looks oddly cheap--the digital video look here is more “TV movie” than sci-fi blockbuster. Despite these issues, its mix of humor, action, and quirky approaches to sci-fi ideas make Before We Vanish an intriguing change of pace from one of Japan’s most fascinating directors.

  Hagazussa – A Heathen’s Curse (Germany, dir. Lukas Flegelfeld)

  In 15th century Europe, Albrun (Aleksandra Cwen) is a young woman who lives in the remote cabin where she and her mother were all but banished by the local village. The villagers despise and fear the women in equal measure, believing them to be witches because they refuse to follow the Christianity that has established itself in more “civilized” places. Hagazussa plays almost like a hybrid of two excellent recent horror films: Its period setting and terror of the supernatural recalls The Witch, while its structure and focus on a central female character echoes The Eyes of My Mother. While both of those films had a claustrophobic quality that contributed to the unease they inspired, Hagazussa takes full advantage of the gorgeous and imposing vistas of its European setting. It really feels like a black metal album cover come to life with its sweeping vistas of mist-shrouded forests clinging to dark mountains. An excellent score contributes to the film’s bleak, brutal atmosphere. This would make a fantastic double feature with Rainer Samet’s November, to which it feels something like an even darker and less playful cousin--each film portrays life in a world largely pagan where Christianity inspires strange (and potentially dangerous) superstition.

  Let the Corpses Tan (France/Belgium, dir. Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani)

  It’s July, and eccentric Madame Luce (Elina Löwensohn) is playing host to her lawyer and some of his friends in her home, a jumble of ruins on a high cliff overlooking the sea. The sun bakes the stone and soaks everyone in sweat, and that’s before Luce’s houseguests suit up in Frankenstein masks to rob a shipment of 250kg of gold from an armored truck. On their way back to Luce’s compound, they pick up a pair of women and a child who turn out to be the wife, maid, and son of a washed-up novelist who is also hiding out with Luce. The boy is in the middle of a custody battle, and both his appearance at a local cafe and the robbery draws the attention of a pair of motorcycle cops who head to Luce’s to scout the situation. Soon, the ruins echo with the sound of gunfire and everyone is forced into uneasy alliances in hopes of getting out alive--and with the gold. Let the Corpses Tan is the third feature from married directorial duo Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani following Amer and The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears. While their previous features used the cinematic vocabulary of the Italian Giallo film in an experimental and virtually non-narrative context, this one has a relatively straightforward storyline. In addition to their Giallo influences the filmmakers incorporate touches of the “Spaghetti Western” and Poliziotteschi, and the results are spectacular. There are still bizarre excursions in the form of a recurring dream/nightmare about a silhouetted woman who seems to represent the greed that binds the characters to their fates, but for the most part this is a wildly stylish and tense action/thriller. While their previous features have felt something like Cattet and Forzani doing the greatest hits of Italian genre cinema (which I don’t mean as a complaint, as their films are two of my favorites of the last decade), Let the Corpses Tan feels like the pair striking out to apply their signature style to create a more accessible film that is still unmistakably their own.

  Anna and the Apocalypse (USA/UK, dir. John McPhail)

  It’s Christmas time, and Anna (Ella Hunt) is facing down the biggest terror of her life: Telling her father Tony (Mark Benton) that she’s planning to postpone college to travel for a year after graduation. When her best friend Lisa (Marli Siu) accidentally lets it slip on their ride to school, Tony goes ballistic and Anna storms off in anger. Things at school aren’t great, either, with cruel headmaster Savage (Paul Kaye) chomping at the bit to make big changes that will make everyone miserable on top of trying to kill a school newspaper story that means a lot to aspiring reporter Steph (Sarah Swire). That same evening is the big school Christmas program, but Anna and her best friend John (Malcolm Cumming) have to miss it to work at the bowling alley. The next day, they find no one has returned from the Christmas show because the zombie apocalypse has broken out. Anna and her friends plan to fight their way across the city to head to the school where Tony and the other survivors are holed up waiting for the military to come rescue them, but zombies may not be the biggest threat to their continued survival. It’s impossible to describe Anna and the Apocalypse without using a torrent of modifiers--this may be the first Scottish teen zombie horror comedy Christmas musical ever made, and it’s exactly what that sounds like. It’s hugely entertaining, with a spectacularly charming cast and a ton of great songs by Roddy Hart and Tommy Reilly. Special mention must be made of the hilariously off-color Christmas song performed by Marli Siu (which fully deserves to be a new standard), and Paul Kaye’s excellent solo number near the end. There are also buckets of blood lest anyone forget this is a zombie movie under all those show-stopping numbers. Anna and the Apocalypse is one of those rare independent films with absurd ambition that it actually fulfills, and one of the most purely fun movies of the year.

  The Killing of a Sacred Deer (UK, dir. Yorgos Lanthimos)

  Steven Murphy (Colin Farrell) is a heart surgeon, happily married to Anna (Nicole Kidman) and father to teenager Kim (Raffey Cassidy) and young son Bob (Sunny Suljic). Steven regularly visits with a teenage boy named Martin (Barry Keoghan), whose relationship with Steven initially see
ms innocuous if uncertain. But as superficially amicable as Steven and Martin appear, Martin harbors sinister intentions. He ingratiates himself with Steven’s family-- especially Kim--and inexplicably enacts a bizarre, cruel plan of revenge. Yorgos Lanthimos came to major international attention with Dogtooth, and his first English-language film The Lobster garnered him an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay along with his regular collaborator Efthymis Filippou (who also co-wrote Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Chevalier). His latest film is perhaps his most accessible from a narrative standpoint, but it’s also his most unsettling, which is really saying something. The Killing of a Sacred Deer takes place among characters who speak almost exclusively in flat monotones, more often than not about prosaic matters of minimal import. This enhances the creeping sense of nightmarish dread the film instills that ramps up as the story progresses, and makes it genuinely upsetting when characters allow their facade to break: Martin breathlessly explaining his intentions to Steven and later making inane small talk with Anna after discussing whether or not his plan is “fair” are scenes both blackly funny and seriously disturbing. That streak of pitch-black humor runs throughout the film, underpinning a story that moves inexorably forward toward a gut-wrenching finale that is equally absurd and horrifying. That’s a difficult balance, but Lanthimos navigates it with a seemingly superhuman confidence and calm.