The world has ended. Civilization has fallen. Some disease has killed everyone on earth...Only young Pumkin (a glorious Milly Shapiro) remains. As far as she knows she is the only person left. She has been trying to to contact someone, anyone, via radio. No one answers. As Halloween comes around again she decorates her house and prepares for the trick for treaters. She knows no one will come, but she hopes they will.
And then some one arrives....
Ben Sottak's HALLOWARRIOR is wondrous.
A throw back to the exploitation films of the 1970's and 80's it's a post apocalyptic tale of the sort they don't do any more. Its is raw and real. It's lived in and imperfect. It is flawed like its characters, however you won't care and instead you'll want to curl up on the couch to eat candy and watch horror films with them.
This is a film that is unlike anything we are seeing these days in the genre field. Not interested in blood and gore (though its here) and not interesting in producing scares (though they are here), this is a film that is entirely about the characters. This is something we haven't had since George Romero died a few years ago.
As much as I want to talk about the characters on the screen I am going to only talk about Pumpkin. The reason for that because if I talk about anyone else I might say too much. I will argue that Pumpkin is one of the greatest women ever put on screen. A Halloween loving outsider, she is the only sort of person who could survive in an empty world. Far from strong, she is a severely damaged young woman. She may seem strong but she is beyond broken. One has to applaud writer director Sottak for going that dark. Watching the film at the Tribeca P&I a certain revelation at first produced no reaction, however a call back later in the film, in a dark moment, had some gasping because what was just coloring was revealed to be a sign of horrific sadness and soul so broken it may never heal.
That Pumpkin remains in our hearts through every moment is due to the work of Milly Shapiro. I would love to say that she should get an Oscar, but frankly this time out I'm going to say fuck that and say that Shapiro is going to get something greater, immortality as a classic character of cinema. Shapiro keeps Pumpkin human and some one we love no matter what happens. We never ever want anything bad to happen and we want to see her survive and maybe come back in a sequel. I truly believe that Shapiro has crafted a performance that is going to live on forever. Shapiro has given us something we never get in the movies a heroine who is shattered and missing pieces and yet stronger than anything in the known universe.
She is going to be the totem for a good many people.
And apologies to the rest of the cast- you are that good too- I just can't say anything lest I say too much.
The plot of the film is unexpected. Yes, the film has Pumpkin meeting some new people, and yes we know they are bad news, but what happens and how it plays out isn't what we expect. The twists and turns are more real than we usually see. There are no super human villains nor the not really dead twists, this is just an ever growing battle for survival that is not typical Hollywood. (Again this feels like Romero)
Okay - let me explain something HALLOWARRIOR is it's own glorious thing. Ben Sottak has made a film that exists in its own universe and is not like anything else. The reason I am mentioning the director from Pittsburgh is not to suggest Sottak is riffing on him, rather it is simply to do two things. First I want to place the film in a certain rarified air. This is on a cinematic mountain top like the other guys work. Secondly I need to be able to explain to you what you are going to see with out revealing too much. I am using the other guy simply so you can have a sort of idea what it is kind of like.
I have to mention that the world in the film is wonderfully constructed. We believe the world has ended. We believe in small part because of Covid, but more because the clues we get ring true. We are not given exposition, we are given clues. The world feels lived in. Details come in references not sentences. Unlike the recent Spielberg film, which stops every couple of minutes to explan things or tell us things we don't need to know, Sottak simply lets the characters live their lives and trusts the audience to keep up and figure it out. I love being treated as co-conspirator and not a mindless child.
I'm not going to lie and say the film is perfect, it is not. There are things that don't always work, or feel like an odd flourish. At the same time the flaws give the film a battle scar or two that make you realize this film was birthed via struggle and a great amount of love. Go with the flaws. Trust me, if you go with the bumps early on, by the time the shit hits the fan you won't care, you'll just want to know who lives and who dies.
Finding a film like this is why I love randomly going to movies.
Movies like this are why I started Unseen Films, small hidden gems that need to be brought into the light and shared. This is a film that reminds me that originality and creativity in cinema isn't dead and that there are filmmakers who can take familiar forms and create something unique.
HALLOWARRIOR is a joy. Its one of the great finds of Tribeca and 2026.
Go see it.
No comments:
Post a Comment