Accused (2023) Overlook FIlm Festival

ACCUSED concerns a man who is mistaken for a terrorist after a bombing. It seems he was dressed similarly to the person responsible and thanks to social media jumping to conclusions the furor causes some vigilantes to hunt him.

ACCUSED is a bit of a curate’s egg of a film for me. It’s an uneasy mix of social commentary and thriller where the parts are better than the whole. Actually ACCUSED is a three act film. The first is life before the attack and the attack. The second is the discovery that social media has made a really grave mistake. The third is the a home invasion by a couple of vigilantes. The first two parts seem to be a different film than the physical fight for survival.

I love the pieces of the film.

I love how the film shows how social media spreads a story and how it fans the flames of hatred and distrust. There is the wonderful scene of the train after the bombing as we watch how the story and rumors spread. It’s a brilliant piece of filmmaking. The entire early part of the film up to the stalking is sterling look at how our society seems to work today. It’s biting commentary that really makes us think about the insanity going on around us. You feel the fear of being singled out on social media and not being able to stop the craziness.

And then the film shifts gears and the film becomes a really good thriller as vigilantes invade and try to kill the person they think is responsible for the bombing. It’s a wonderfully made battle for survival.

The problem for me is the two pieces feels a awkwardly put together. The thrills that are in the second half are really good, and actually nicely more realistic than most similar thrillers, but it feels like a different movie than the first half with the switch not being as perfect as it should be. There is a bump which I was willing to let go until the film switches back in the final moments for the sting in the tail. The end is an absolutely needed moment and the perfect ending but it made me really feel the different clothes the film was cut from.

Quibbles aside ACCUSED is a hell of a film and it will make you realize the damage our social media obsessed society can inflict on individuals.

Recommended

GIVE ME AN A (2023) Overlook Film Festival

Angry genre anthology made in reaction to the ending of Rowe V Wade.  It’s 15 short films and a wrap around piece of a cheerleader squad dancing.

One of the more uneven anthology films I’ve run across, GIVE ME AN A is a very mixed bag. Starting off with the very strong VOICELESS (a body horror tale that will curl your toes) the film then goes from pillar to post  for the remaining 90 minutes as moving pieces mix with screams of blood curdling rage. While all of the films are well made the rage frequently over whelms everything making them difficult to watch. I got to a point where I got tired of being yelled  at.  This is not to short change the cries of anger, more that it makes the film difficult to watch which will not change anyone’s mind.

I think I would have liked this film more if the films had been released separately as shorts instead of  strung together. (or perhaps if each had their own opening and closing credits so it played like a short film collection). The problem is that the cumulative effect of each film building on the next doesn't allow each film to stand on it's own and the rage is magnified making each piece harder to take on its own terms.

Definitely worth a look for the interested, though it maybe best seen in small bits.

We Kill For Love (2023) Overlook FIlm Festival

During the 1980’s and 90’s (mostly the 90’s) the home video market was flooded with racy thrillers filled with sex and violence. The films tended to show rich people in LA cheating on each other and committing crimes.  They had names like DEADLY OBSESSION, DARK CRIMES and THE RED SHOE DIARIES. So many were being cranked out that Cinemax was called Skinemax by many people simply because their night time offerings were filled with these softcore offerings. With the rise of the internet and the shifting of the home video market the production of the films has lessened to a great degree. However some people have an affection for the racy thrillers and they are behind this look at the history of the genre that taught many a teen about sex.

Filled with lots of behind the scenes tales, WE KILL FOR LOVE is everything you ever wanted to know about these softcore thrillers plus two hours of additional material. This wildly over long documentary runs two hours and forty three minutes and unless you are as obsessed as the filmmakers you’re going to bail on the film well before the end. The problem is not that the film is bad, though there are problems, it’s more that unless you are an absolute obsessed fan, there isn’t enough here to keep you seated for three hours.

The first problem with the film is that the film seems to be wonky on  the history of the sub-genre. The film suggests that the template of the films, particularly the  look and details of the films all come from Brian DePalma’s DRESS TO KILL, seemingly unaware that DePalma was riffing on the films that went before it. The history on either side of that is equally spotty.  The films prior to the 1990’s seem to be given equal weight simple because they are mentioning them rather than their importance.  Watching the historical discussions I wanted to get out a red pencil and edit the material because having lived through and followed the film industry for decades I was filled with a constant stream of “yes but…”  Honestly if this film wasn’t three hours long I could have lived with it but time wasn’t an issue so it should have given more detail.

The editing of the film doesn’t help.  At times the material feels scattershot. I’m not sure why the film puts some of the clips together or why some of the films are grouped together. We’ll get posters or clips for 8 films from the late 1990’s  and then one from the 1980’s before a whole bunch more from the 90’s.  Direct to video mix with theatrical in ways that don’t make sense if you’ve seen the films.

It doesn’t help that the film takes the films incredibly seriously. While I am all for taking film history seriously, some things should considered seriously in a magazine article in Film Comment where it's brief and to the point, as opposed to a doctoral thesis where things are over analyzed. WE KILL FOR LOVE is a doctoral thesis.

Because the film is long and detailed it has a  HUGE problem in watchability in that by bringing all the clips of all the films together the film effectively destroying the genre. As the film opens the film shows us how similar all the films are in setting  (they are all set in “somewhere LA”) and look (they string similar sequences together)  it kind of kills the desire to ever see any of them ever again. Watching the film I saw clips from some films I had seen and liked over the years because they seemed different, but in the hands of the director Anthony Penta they suddenly seemed unremarkable. It’s like the films have been photocopied or cut and pasted.  People complain that the program films of the Golden Age of Hollywood being all the same, these softcore thrillers really are.

Watching all three hours of WE KILL FOR LOVE removed any and all interest in ever seeing any of these films ever again.

Monolith (2022) Overlook Film Festival 2023

 

A disgraced reporter turns to podcasting in the hope of revitalizing her career. Delving into unexplained mysteries she discovers the story of mysterious black bricks which are causing havoc in people’s lives.

I must apologize for the above description of the plot sounding like every other one you may have run across but there is only so much I can say without saying too much.

Minimalist scifi thriller is largely simply Lily Sullivan in a room alone talking on the phone or threw the computer. She is staying at her parents home while they are away and she comes into contact with people only through electronics. Yes we hear the people she is speaking with and others in videos she sees, but this film is otherwise Sullivan all the time.

Playing almost like an audio drama this is a film where the stories we hear build the suspense and the fear. Everything we are being told through the first half to the first two thirds of the film rachet up the suspense as we go down a rabbit hole and aren’t certain what we are going to find at the other end. There is a point where we really don’t now what is going to happen and we delightfully are willing to go with it anywhere.

The question with MONOLITH is going to be how are you going to feel once the film starts answering many of the questions it is raising.  Does what is in your mind match what we are being shown.  Personally I’m not sure what I think. I do know that the film so beautifully sets the table that I’m not certain the meal that follows lives up to the buildup. What happens isn’t bad, it just isn’t as good as the things that were rolling through our minds.

Disappoint in the ending aside I liked MONOLITH a great deal, and as such it’s worth a look

Trim Season (2023) Overlook Film Festival

A group of friends go up to a cannabis farm in order to make some money however it quickly transpires that there is something really wrong going on.

Good but slightly frustrating horror film has some truly chilling moments. There is some truly disturbing moments here with visual effects that will make you sit up and go ‘WHOA!”. I say this because right from the start the film announces itself as something special as something terrible happens to two young woman in the opening minutes. It’s not so much the use of scissors but the contorting of the bodies that had be starring wide eyed.  The visual horrors continue later in the film in ways that are best seen rather than described.

My frustration with the film comes from the way, like many other cannabis films fetishize weed. Most films with weed as a focus spend too much time focusing on the physical plant in it’s various forms. I’ve never been so fascinated by the plant or use that I would love to watch sequences focusing on them.  It always feels like they are playing to the stoner crowd instead of telling a good story. Sadly most films in the weed genre think being about weed is enough, which is why I avoid them.  While most of TRIM SEASON doesn’t do that, there are still a couple of moments that fall into that category and they took me out of the film.

On the other hand the good stuff in this film, the death and destruction, There is some ugly (in a good way) stuff here, and it needs to be seen by horror lovers.

Worth a look.

Overlook Film Festival 2023: The Best Shorts

I've gone through all of the short films playing The Overlook Film Festival and while they all were good, I only had time to write on the best of the best.

RINGING ROCKS
Creepy film about a man who takes his boyfriend to recover in the desert and finds things going side ways.

SPLINTER
Very good thriller about an young man with a secret. This nifty thriller feels more a proof of concept than a finished film. When I got to the end I wanted to know more. This needs to be continued.

FROM BEYOND
Excellent tale of alien invasion takes the form of an observational documentary. This is easily one of the best films at the overlook Film Festival. It’s also one of the best scifi horror films of the year. I don’t want to say too much but as much as I want to see more, I kind of hope they never expand it because what is here is so disturbing I don’t want explanations that will ruin it.

ANGELS
A woman with a dying sister finds a being that falls from the sky.

Neat little scifi tale whose turn I don’t dare spoil.

DEAD ENDERS
Absolutely awesome film about what happens after a drilling operation goes to deep and releases beasties from below. While we have been here before, rarely has it been sooooo much fun.

One of the great Overlook Film Festival films.

GO TO BED RAYMOND
A son keeps waking up his dad at night….

And the reason why is not what you think and I’m not telling. It’s just a film you need to discover for yourself.

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.

Overlook Film Festival Curtain Raiser

The Overlook Film Festival starts this week and we are better for it. 

One of the great genre festivals of the year this year it has two coups book ending the festival with the World Premiere of Renfield opening the fest and an early screening of the new Evil Dead film closing the festivities. In between there will be films, Podcasts, Parties, Music, Magic, Live Shows, Immersive Theater pieces and more films. It's a wild time in New Orleans.

I'm wading into the fray as this posts so expect lots of coverage along the way.

And having seen a good number of films I highly recommend you just jump and buy as many tickets as you can manage because it's pretty much all good. And that includes shorts-they shorts are rocking this year.

Four films are playing at other festivals this past weekend and next. All four kick serious ass and are going to be some of the best films you see all year. I highly recommend the quartet (click on the title to get taken to the full reviews).

ARTIFICE GIRL
BROOKLYN 45
MR ORGAN
FIVE DEVILS

The festival is running some oldies and I recommend them as well

DEAD ZONE-David Cronenberg does Stephen King with Christopher Walken in the lead. It's atypical Cronenberg in that it's a mainstream film

MATINEE-Joe Dante's nostalgic tale of showman John Goodman having a preview screening of his new film called MANT. Set during the Cuban Missile Crisis it's a look at film over a half century ago.

TINGLER-William Castle (the inspiration for Goodman's character in MATINEE) classic about the creature that makes us feel afraid. When it was originally screened the seats were wired to shock the audience.

THE LODGER- Alfred Hitchcock's tale of Jack the Ripper. It's the closest Hitch ever got to making a full on horror film.

And there are tons of other films which I will be reviewing as soon as I can sit down and write them up.

Do yourself a favor and buy tickets (Including the shorts collections there are some truly great shorts).  Details can be found here.

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.

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.

Brooklyn 45 (2023)SXSW 2023 Overlook Film Festival 2023

BROOKLYN 45 is one of the best films of 2023. I say that not because I know Ted Geoghegan but because it's true. While nominally a horror film, BROOKLYN 45 is instead something greater. It is a dark sad look at the evil we do while telling ourselves we are only doing it for good reasons. It's a film where our best efforts go terribly wrong and reveal us to be broken and damaged humans/monsters. It is also one of the finest meditations on the effects of war on the human psyche, both of those in the trenches and at home, that I have ever run across in any medium.

The film takes place on December 27, 1945. The war is over, a group of friends go to the home of one of their number nominally to spend the night consoling their host about the suicide of his wife on Thanksgiving morning six weeks earlier. As the group begins to relax things turn for the spooky when a seance is suggested. Everyone is uncomfortable but they go along...until weird things begin to happen, and someone ends up dead. Things go even more wrong when they find they can't leave the room they are in.

The film sports a killer cast of usually supporting actors (Anne Ramsay, Larry Fessenden, Jeremy Holm, Ezra Buzzington, Ron E. Rains, Kristina Klebe) all lifted to leading roles. Because of the great cast the film does what any great film should do out of the box, and that is give us people we care about walking around on the screen. We kind of like everyone. They come on screen fully formed people, so we understand the choices they are making. It’s a singular achievement to have so many great actors in what are truly incredibly demanding roles.   

And these are demanding roles because we have to see the pain behind the eyes and in the soul while they are keeping up a brave face. We need to see the inner turmoil. More to the point the actors needed to play it so that when they crack emotionally, we need to feel it in our guts. And we do it feel it and it wrecks us. (Hey Academy put Anne Ramsey into the Oscar mix-it’s a gutting performance that has been haunting me for days)

Also, by not having any big stars in the film we can't second guess what's going to happen. We can't work out plot twists based on who is in what role. We just have to go for the ride.

While there are ghosts and hauntings in this film, I would not really call it a horror film.  This is a film that is about the effect of the war on good people. It’s a mirror held up to society about how we see each other and how when the war ends, we don't just stop hating. It’s a film that reveals misguided hatred can live on after we die. If you need proof that this isn't a horror film, consider that probably at least an hour of this film has nothing to do directly with scary stuff. Seriously, most of this film is about things other than the supernatural. This is a film that deals with the trauma of what happened to these people. It shows how the need to follow orders and do the “right thing” wrecked them inside as they did the most terrible things imaginable. This is an examination of the national psyche of a country at war. And it is not just about World War 2 but about Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Ukraine, Israel, or any other conflict, regardless of who is fighting. BROOKLYN 45 is a way more than just a horror film and as such transcends simply being categorized as a horror film. When was the last time  you saw a film that dealt with hatred on the home front in a real and visceral way?

That isn't to say that the film isn't scary, it is at times. However, what the film is is incredibly tense and suspenseful. The bad things that are happening and the discussions being had are about the evil that we do to each other are in their way scarier than the ghosts. (And yea, there are some ghostly scares)

This is filmmaking of the highest order. Ted has taken what should be a single room stage play and turned it into a highly cinematic film.  It begins with changing aspect ratios. When the film starts and ends it is in Academy ratio, and then goes widescreen when the action gets to the room. And while we never leave the single set, it never feels claustrophobic or limited in scope, instead Ted gives us the world with the in the confines of a single room. The dialog brings the world inside to us. The war, the family down the block and other references open things up simply by turns of a phrase. Watching the film, I ached to see it on a big screen in a theater instead of a small monitor. 

Several years ago, I sat down with Ted to talk about the films he made and the films he was hoping to make. It was interesting talk that haunted me because there was something about what Ted was saying made me feel like he was going to be going really big places. It was clear he knew exactly what he wanted to do and more importantly what he could do with cinema. Everything he told me is here in this film. Having spoken to numerous filmmakers over the years I had never seen a filmmaker be so clear eyed about what he was doing and why.  As a result, I am not being hyperbolic when I say that BROOKLYN 45 is the place where a great filmmaker steps front and center for all to see.  Trust me, Ted will have an Oscar or two and numerous other awards very soon.

If you doubt me watch the craft of this film. Watch the shot choices, the use of sound, the shifting aspect ratio, the background details, the writing, the characters, the sense of history and place, everything that makes up this film is top of the line. Seriously half an hour into the film I wanted to see the film again just so I could start to focus on the details in the film. Hell, I wanted to walk around in the place where it was taking place because it was so perfectly realized.

I love this film. I love how it feels like an old film but is very clearly a modern creation. I mean only recently would anyone dare make a film suggesting that anyone in WW2 did anything bad or well into war crime territory. When was the last film you saw that dealt with how people couldn’t let go of hatred just because victory was declared.

And yet again I have to say that this film is great because the film is about more than just ghosts.
While I know Shudder bought the rights to the film and will be screening it, I am frightened that the audiences there will either be turned off by the talk, or fail to see just what a monumental film this is. This film should be in the Oscar mix because of what it really is doing, which unfortunately will get lost behind the ghosts.

Simply put this film is a masterpiece, It is a fucking awesome piece of cinematic art of the highest order. It’s a film destined to be looked at for decades to come.

Highly recommended. 

The Artifice Girl (2022) SXSW 2023 Overlook FIlm Fest 2023

Thoughtful and moving examination of AI and it's place in the world via the story of a computer program built to hunt child predators on line. It may very well be one of the dark horse films for the best of the year viewings.

The film begins when a government agency hauls in a tightly wound man (writer director Franklin Rich) into an interrogation room. They have questions they need answers to. They want to know what he knows about a young girl named Cherry who is trolling the pedophile chat rooms. It comes to pass that she isn't real but a creation of the young man. She is in fact the most advanced AI ever created. What follows is a discussion of all things connected to AI, consciousness and what makes us human.

THE ARTIFICE GIRL floored me. I thought this was going to be a thriller and while it is that in a way, it also revealed itself to be so much more. I honestly didn't expect the the emotion I felt when the film ended. I was so moved that I wanted to go back and see it from the start.

Told in three distinct parts the film ponders the notions of AI and humanity over time. Part one has Cherry just existing on a hard drive. Part two ponders if we should create a robot version. The third part is set fifty years later as Cherry and her dying creator have a heart to heart about all that has happened and may happen in the future. Its a heady mix of emotion and ideas that gets under your skin and gets you thinking and feeling.

Having seen the film I'm totally flummoxed as to why more people aren't talking about the film. I apparently missed the film at several festivals over the last year, and while I had  halfheartedly had it on my possible SXSW dance card it wasn't until Liz Whittemore emailed me to say I HAD to see the film, that I pushed to make it happen. I'm glad I did because this film blew me away.

While I have read some reviews that compared the film to things like Pinocchio, I think doing so is incredibly lazy. Other than a superficial similarity, the truth is THE ARTIFICE GIRL is wholly its own thing. What it does and how it does them makes for a unique viewing experience that forces us to deal with the questions it raises.

I can't recommend this film enough.