GODLESS: THE EASTFIELD EXORCISM (2023) Overlook Film Festival

This is a deceptive (and in a good way) and frightening film.

Nominally based on a true incident GODLESS tells the story of a married couple in crisis. She is having mental health issues. She is having visions and hearing voices. Their doctor is trying to treat her but the medical solution is not a quick fix. She will have to be on the meds for an extended period before they really show signs of working. Her husband is beside himself and fears that she is possessed and in need of an exorcism. The thing is the priest he wants to bring her to won’t look at her unless the doctor signs off. However things happen and not in a good way.

What I love about the film is that it wickedly structured. Looking at first like a straight forward drama or a standard horror  film, things slowly change over time. We get the intrusion of real horror. Reality turns on its head as we go deeper into the psychosis.  What we thought was real is going on changes. Maybe it isn’t mental. From there the film grabs us by the hair and drags us down the garden path smashing us into every rock, bush and tree along the way.  It batters us do by the end we are left exhausted.

What we thought at the beginning is not what we thought at the end.

I had a great time. I loved that the film turns the exorcism sub-genre, which I never really liked, on it’s head. When I got to the end of the film I wanted to turn around and go again.(that’s a rave)

Go see this.

Highly recommended.

POUNDCAKE (2023) Make Believe Seattle

Onur Turkel returns with the story of a serial killer wandering the streets and subway platforms of Brooklyn.

POUNDCAKE is being listed in the promo material as a slasher film, except it not really. Aside from the fact that the killer carries a chain, the sequences are done more for humor than scares, which to my mind removes any thoughts of horror.

Turkel’s films are an acquired taste. You either go with his off kilter look at the lives of hipsters in NYC or you don’t. I find his films frustrating with great bits being hampered by nonsense.

The nonsense overwhelms any good stuff here. Nominally the story of a serial killer, the film bogs down in to the lives of various hipsters and podcasters. I know that this is supposed to be a humorous but to me the humor is forced, and while I laughed at some of it Turkel tends to push the point past the point of being funny, or is simply making jokes that are uncomfortable just because. More often than not I found myself questioning why Turkel  was showing us the thing he’s showing or making the jokes he is. 

I know that makes me sound like a stick in the mud, but I’m not. I don’t mind stupid jokes or being poked in the cinematic eye, but I want to know that there is something there, even if its that there is no point. Turkel always seems to be trying to make a point of some kind, but from my POV he’s always missing the mark because there is too much nonsense around his themes.

For fans of the director only

Smoking Causes Coughing (2022) opens Friday and plays The Overlook Film Festival 2023, MAKE BELIEVE SEATTLE 2023, Boston Underground 2023

Quentin-Dupieuxis at it again with his wildly all over the place SMOKING CAUSES COUGHING, nominally a spoof of shows like Power Rangers and comics like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

The film has a group of superheroes being sent on a weeklong retreat to get their teamwork back after their latest battle against a mansized turtle takes longer than expected. As they camp they begin to tell ghost stories, with the result the superhero film morphs into Tales From The Crypt.

This is both one of Dupieux's best films and his least satisfying The best part comes via some of the most wickedly funny bits the director has ever put on film. The jokes and riffs here are pretty much all on target with the result you will be constantly laughing. The worst part is from the fact that ultimately most of this either doesn’t end or goes now where. Only one horror story about a helmet and the story told by the little girl end. Everything else, even the film itself just sort of stops (as the post credit sequence hammers home)

I really liked the bit here but I really wish there was an ending. This feels like --- had a whole closetful of ideas and just put them into a film because he could. Think THE BALLAD OF BISTER SCRUGGS from the Cohen Brothers.

It’s definitely worth a look because the ride is so good, but just be ready to be disappointed when the film flames out in the end.

THIRD SATURDAY IN OCTOBER V and THIRD SATURDAY IN OCTOBER (both 2022) Make Believe Seattle

There are a couple of tricks to watching these films.

Watch V first then 1. Try and watch them together. Also remember that the films are send ups of long running series from the 1980’s and 90’s.

The idea behind the films was that V was the only surviving film in a series that spun off from a 1980’s horror film about a serial killer who survived his execution and then sought to get revenge.  The film is a note perfect comedy horror film in the style of  series like Friday the 13th or Slumber Party Massacre. Watching it it feels like coin into the middle of series. After the filmmakers finished the film they went back and made what the first film would have been if had actually existed.

I liked these films, but to be perfectly honest these are not films to sit at home and watch. The two THIRD SATURDAY films should be seen in a theater with like mined people who get the jokes and the references. Sitting at home watching this for the review my thoughts constantly shifted to how much greater this would have been being able to listen to everyone around me react and comment on the film. Sure I could have invited friends over, but at the same time a living room full of people is not the same as being in a darkened theater.

If you are a horror movie fan these films are recommended, If you are at a festival or some place where they are playing together with a real live audience they are a must.

PURSUED (2023) MAKE BELIEVE SEATTLE

After the death of her father a young woman starts to investigate her mother’s new boyfriend, but she makes a mistake and connects with a serial killer with the same name.

Pursued is a good but unremarkable throw back to similar films from the 1980’s and early 1990’s.  Hitting a lot of the expected notes the film expertly tells a story we’ve seen before. While it’s entertaining, the film suffers because in addition to riffing on the films of the 80’s and 90’s it is a bit slackly paced.  If you removed 15 minutes this would be a lean mean killing machine.

I feel bad for seeming to pick on the film but the truth is there is a lot of good stuff here, particularly the lead performances, that make me wish this was a bit tighter.

Worth a look for horror fans.

Aliens Abducted My Parents and Now I Feel Kinda Left Out (2022) Make Believe Seattle

When a high school girl moves with her parents to a new town in the middle of nowhere she makes the acquaintance of one her fellow students, a young man who believes his parents were abducted by aliens ten years before.

Looking and behaving like a 1990's attempt at riffing a Spielberg film, ALIENS ABDUCTED is better than 95% of the Spielberg riffs that were cranked out in the 80's and 90's in an effort to catch the wave that was ET, GOONIES, GREMLINS and related Amblin films. Funny for the right reasons it is certain to put your smile on your face. 

While the film hits all of the expected plot points and thematic notes ALIENS ABDUCTED still manages us to suck us in and drag us along. This is a film you will fall for, though if you are like me you will spend the first 15 or 20 minutes groaning at how cliche it is until the cast of characters win you over and you just go with it.

If there is anything wrong with the film its in the final minutes when the film's effects go intentionally retro and it somehow loses the  magic as things stop being "real" and become a movie.

That said the film will make you feel warm and fuzzy and as such is recommended.

Five Devils (2022) opens this week in New York, plays MAKE BELIEVE SEATTLE this weekend and the Overlook FIlm Festival next week

Young Vicky has a supernatural sense of smell. She can smell anything. She makes jars full of smalls that bring back memory. When her aunt returns to town it sets the already tense relationship between her parents on edge. Things become complicated when her aunt brings with her something that sends Vicky back in time to around the time all of the tension started.

Intriguing science fiction or magical realism tinged tale is mostly a kick in the pants. Setting up all sorts of intriguing plot threads we end up hooked early as we want to know what is going on and where this is going.  For most of its running time FIVE DEVILS is its own wonderful beast brough to life by a killer cast (Adèle Exarchopoulos, Moustapha Mbengue, Swala Emati and in a star making debut Sally Dramé) who make it all perfectly believable. More importantly while the films wrestles with the big themes of homophobia and racism, the film never loses sight of the human tale and the emotion between the complicated triangle of adults is never lost.

If the film has any real flaw it’s that it doesn’t quite stick the landing. It’s nothing terrible  but in a film largely unlike  anything else we’ve seen the film suddenly becomes a tad predictable. I would have loved a conclusion that wasn’t one that I had kind of eyed a few minutes from the end.

Quibbles about the ending aside this is a film you’ll want to see, especially for young Ms Drame.

Mr Organ (2022) Boston Underground Film Festival 2023 Overlook Film Festival 2023 MAKE BELIEVE SEATTLE 2023

 

Mr Organ will chill you to the core. The film is the story of grand manipulator and son of a bitch who lives to fuck over people. He’s a man who is described as being so evil that if he went to hell Satan would go to Heaven just to get away from him.

The film is the story of filmmaker David Farrier interactions with Michael Organ. He is a manipulator, con man and sick bastard who loves to destroy people mentally. Farrier ran into Organ when he was booting cars that parked in a private car park after hours and then it went from there. If you saw Farrier's earlier TICKLED you know that any story he has to tell doesn’t go remotely as expected and that’s the case here. The twists and turns will knot your stomach as Organ digs deeper and deeper intoFarrier's life in order to ruin it because he can.

This film scared me more than any horror film of the last five years because what happened here could happen anywhere. There are dozens of Michael Organ’s out there looking to get sick thrills out of people’s pain.

If you notice that I’m not telling you anything about what happens and that’s intentional. I want you to see the film as I did, knowing as little as possible. I want you to get punched in the face and kicked in the gut as this just goes weirder and weirder.

This is a real life nightmare.

I can’t recommend this enough.

If you are up for it this is a must see.