Movie Review: The Other Side

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Movie Review: Sully

Sully

Directed by: Clint Eastwood.

Written by: Todd Komarnicki based on the book by Chesley Sullenberger and Jeffrey Zaslow.

Starring: Tom Hanks (Chesley 'Sully' Sullenberger), Aaron Eckhart (Jeff Skiles), Laura Linney (Lorraine Sullenberger), Mike O'Malley (Charles Porter), Anna Gunn (Elizabeth Davis), Valerie Mahaffey (Diane Higgins), Delphi Harrington (Lucille Palmer), Jamey Sheridan (Ben Edwards), Holt McCallany (Mike Cleary).

 

I remember when American Sniper came out, I saw a round table discussion on the film on the late, great Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, where one of the commenters said that Eastwood had made his career making films that are black and white morally – an assumption that I gather he made after watching zero Clint Eastwood films, because the best films he has made as a director all exist in the moral grey zone. Eastwood’s view of heroism is quite complex in films like The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), Unforgiven (1992), his twin Iwo Jiwa films, Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jim (both 2006) – and yes, even American Sniper (2014) itself – among other. He has also presented some more simplistic views over the years – mostly in genre films – but Eastwood is at his best when the contradiction inherent in violence and heroism – that violence can be necessary, but it always comes at a cost. His latest film, Sully, unfortunately doesn’t make a whole lot of room for that moral grey area that marks Eastwood’s best films. It stars Tom Hanks as Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, the airline pilot who lost both engines right after takeoff, and landed his plane – with 155 people on board – on the Hudson River – and miraculously, everyone survived. Sully became an instant national hero – even if there were some who questioned his decisions that day. Because the whole water landing took place over a mere 208 seconds (the film says that number A LOT), Eastwood has to find a way to stretch that into a feature film – a tight one, even by Eastwood’s standards, which runs just over 90 minutes long. He does it by showing those 208 seconds multiple times, from multiple view points, during the course of the movie – and turning much of the film into a kind of courtroom drama – where Sully argues for the “human factor” to bureaucrats who tout their technology. Guess who wins?

 

However, while I don’t think Sully is near Eastwood’s best work, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a rock solid movie on its own terms. It starts with Hanks’ performance as Sully – which fits nicely into his recent run of performances in films like Captain Phillips and Bridge of Spies, as men who will stand up for what they believe in, no matter what anyone else says. I think Hanks is often underrated as an actor, simply because he makes performances like the ones delivered in those movies look so effortless – like he isn’t even trying. But most actors couldn’t deliver those performances no matter how hard they tried, and Hanks fills them with quiet, subtle moments. It’s true that films like Greengrass, Spielberg and now Eastwood cast Hanks as a kind of shorthand – Hanks is now essentially America’s Dad, so we’re on his side from the get go. But Hanks shades the performance nicely – while the film doesn’t doubt Sully’s heroism for a second, Hanks allows doubt to seep into his screen version of Sully – which, of course, makes him all the more heroic – reluctant heroes are much more likable after all. None of the other performances really register that much – although Aaron Eckhart does have a killer mustache, and a couple of good one-liners. This is Hanks’ show – at least when it isn’t Eastwood’s.

 

As a filmmaker, Eastwood has always been a classicist – and he normally strips away all the fat in his film – all those elements that aren’t strictly necessary. He doesn’t quite do that in Sully – a few flashbacks to Sully’s younger days adds absolutely nothing to the movie, and I could have done with fewer phone to his distraught wife (although that could be because his wife is played by the great Laura Linney, who is given nothing to do but cry, and it’s frustrating to an actress of her talent wasted like that) – then again, the film still barely gets above 90 minutes, so he probably needed that padding. Eastwood is at his best when recreating those fateful 208 seconds though – and a few horrible moments when Sully thinks about what could have happened had he messed up (these moments will strike many as exploitive – as it literally depicts a plane crashing into New York City, calling to mind 9/11 specifically – then again, pretty much every blockbuster now using 9/11 inspired imagery – and that’s for movies about men in capes punching each other, so perhaps Sully can be cut some slack). I’ve always liked the way Eastwood shoots interiors as well – and there are some highlights here as well (the darkened bar, Sully lost in thought looking at the window, etc.). Finally, I did appreciate how the films climatic “courtroom” scenes pretty much ignored the typical theatrics of those moments – preferring something much quieter, and realistic.

 

Sully is far from a perfect movie. Yes, it is too simplistic a view of heroism for Eastwood – who I suspect, felt a great kinship with Sully (the Eastwood film that Sully actually reminded me of is one he didn’t direct, but starred in – Trouble with the Curve, win which he played an aging baseball scout, whose eyesight is going, but he still knows more than those crazy kids with their stats and computers – or as Eastwood recently called them, the “Pussy Generation” – good ol’ Clint). The film also has some lines that are way too on the nose “No one dies today”, “It’s been a long time since New York had good news to celebrate – especially involving a plane”). Still, what Sully does it does well. It’s a solid effort from Eastwood – and more than solid from Hanks. Both have done better – but Sully’s still rock solid.

Classic Movie Review: Body Double

Body Double (1984)

Directed by: Brian De Palma.

Written by: Robert J. Avrech and Brian De Palma.

Starring: Craig Wasson (Jake Scully), Melanie Griffith (Holly Body), Gregg Henry (Sam Bouchard), Deborah Shelton (Gloria Revelle), Guy Boyd (Det. Jim McLean), Dennis Franz (Rubin the Director), David Haskell (Will the Drama Teacher), Rebecca Stanley (Kimberly Hess), Al Israel (Corso the Director).

 

Brian De Palma’s Body Double is one of the director’s best films – an Hitchcock-ian thriller that takes parts of Vertigo and Rear Window, but mixes them in with De Palma’s own sensibility to create a movie that is seemingly all surface style, although it runs deeper than that if you’re paying attention. The film was greeted with a lot of critical disdain back in 1984 – and some still think it’s awful – but it’s been one of my favorite De Palma films since the first time I saw it – and each subsequent viewing only confirms that.

 

The story is both relatively simple and needlessly complex, as well as completely ridiculous – all by design, I’m sure. The film stars Craig Wasson as Jake Scully, a struggling L.A. actor, who gets fired from the only job he can get – in a low budget film that kind of looks like a soft core porn with vampires – because of his claustrophobia. De Palma steals the opening from Blow Out here – placing in the audience inside the movie within the movie and then revealing that it isn’t real – in Blow Out, the sorority massacre is the kind of misogynistic slasher film many accused De Palma of making, and in Body Double, it seems like the director had Dennis Franz virtually play De Palma as the director of this one. Anyway, Jake’s day gets even worse when he returns home and finds his girlfriend cheating on him – in bed with another man - I absolutely love the reveal of this affair, as Jake tiptoes through the house so quietly looking for his girlfriend, who we can quite clearly hear having sex, although he has no idea what’s going on until he actually sees her (thus establishing a very important thing about our hero – he’s not very bright). Down on his luck, and falling off the wagon, he meets Sam Bouchard (Gregg Henry), another struggling actor, and mentions he’s looking for a sublet. Wouldn’t you know, Sam has the perfect place – somewhere he’s himself is subletting – but he’s scored a month long job up Seattle, and needs someone to care for the place. This apartment is the most unlikely on in cinema history – it looks like a miniature version of the space needle, complete with revolving bed, and lots of plants – not to mention a telescope, and the view of a gorgeous woman in another building, who every day at the same time does a sexy striptease in front of a window, for reasons no one bothers to question. Jake gets obsessed with this woman – Gloria Revelle (Deborah Shelton) and eventually starts following her) – but realizes he’s not the only one. Without giving away too much more, let’s just mention that eventually, Jake goes from Peeping Tom to well-meaning stalker, and finally moves into the porn business – where he meets Holly Body (Melanie Griffith) – a porn star with a very specific set of dos and don’ts.

 

The plot of Body Double is, admittedly, rather silly – but it’s also hardly the point of the film. De Palma deliberately chooses different elements from Hitchcock classics as jumping off points – the voyeurism of Rear Window, where the hero may have committed a witnesses a murder while peeping, and Vertigo, where the heroes weakness and phobia – prevents them from saving a life, which makes him feel guilty, propelling him on a journey with a woman who looks a lot like the murdered woman he couldn’t save. But Craig Wasson is no Jimmy Stewart – the hero of both of those Hitchcock classics, and one of the most likable actors in cinema history. As an audience member, you have no problem following Stewart down the rabbit hole, no matter how dark it becomes. Wasson is weaker from the outset – and he goes to sleazier places. You’re not sure you should like him. This is deliberate on De Palma’s part – the great every man in Jimmy Stewart has been replaced by this guy – who thinks that is precisely what he is, but he’s much more like the nerd her will eventually play in a porno music video (don’t ask – just go with it).

 

As with all De Palma films, there are several great visual set pieces throughout Body Double. There is, quite possibly, the longest “following” scene in movie history, as Jake follows Gloria Revelle on a full day of shopping and heading to the beach. The sequence goes on and on and on – with no dialogue, just the great score by Pino Donaggio, and the excellent steadicam work by cinematographer Stephen H. Burum. It is a hypnotizing sequence. The murder at the center of the plot is bloody and disturbing – and it’s that murder where most people make their complaints of misogyny against the film – as a female character is killed with a giant drill (to be fair, she is a more passive female character than I would prefer, and De Palma’s own explanation for the method of murder – that he needed a long drill so we could see it go through the floor, smacks of excuse making – even if it is true). The best character in the movie however is clearly Holly Body – played in her first great screen performance by Melanie Griffth (in fact, it would be the best work Griffth has ever done on screen, were it not for the film she made right after this – Something Wild directed by Jonathan Demme). De Palma had wanted to cast a real porn star in the role – but he was right to end up with Griffth. Her monologue about what she will and will not do is wonderful, because in just a few moments she hits many different things – it is funny and shocking and kind of sad. That describes her character as well – although unlike the other women in the film, Holly Body knows precisely who she is, and is in control at every instance.

 

Body Double is, in many ways, a quintessential 1980s film. You couldn’t make this film in any other decade than this. It is a film that embraces, on its surface level, all the flash and greed and shallowness of that decade, while underneath that, critiquing that shallowness. It’s a film that pulls the rug out of the audience more than once – but rather than feeling cheap, it simply deepens the film. The film is, on one level, trashy, sleazy fun – like any number of other thrillers from that era. But there’s more style here than in those films – and a little bit more going on beneath the surface. It really is one of De Palma’s very best films.

My Mini Tiff Preview

Next Wednesday to Friday – the 14^th to the 16^th – will mark my annual trip to TIFF. Back in the day, I used to go for the whole week, but that hasn’t been the case since my first daughter – who just turned 5 – was born. Now, I only get a few days every year, and am grateful for that. I’ll see 13 films over those three days, and unless something changes, the films below are what I will be seeing. I would have loved to see some of the any number of films –American Honey, American Pastoral, Aquarius, Arrival, Blair Witch, Certain Women, Elle, Free Fire, Graduation, I Daniel Blake, It’s Only the End of the World, Jackie, Julieta, La La Land, Manchester by the Sea, Mascots, Moonlight, My Entire High School is Sinking into the Sea, Paterson, Personal Shopper, Prevenge, Rage, Rats, Raw, Safari, Sieranevada, Snowden, Sweet Dreams, The B-Side, The Bad Batch, The Handmaiden, The Salesman, The Unknown Girl, Things to Come and Toni Erdman – were all films that jumped out at me when the selection was announced – but either they conflicted with something below, or more likely either didn’t play on the days I’m going (the festival, despite some effort on their part, is still ridiculously frontloaded), or already off sale by the time I got to use by Back Half Package. I knew all that when I chose my package – but going later in the festival has always been preferable to me than earlier – everything is more relaxed, everything runs more or less of time, there are less celebrities and media, and you can concentrate on the films themselves – which is why I’m there anyway. Besides, I’ll be able to see all of those films at some point – some of them fairly soon. And even having to fit 13 films into three days, on a tight schedule, I only have two “filler” movies – those films that normally I wouldn’t have been all that interested in other than the fact that I had to see something. I’ll give a mini-wrap up after it’s all over, and until then, here’s my mini-preview.

 

Christine (Antonio Campos)
Indie-provocateur Campus (Simon Killer, Afterschool) returns with this film about Christine Chubbock (Rebecca Hall), a Florida newscaster who committed suicide on live TV in the 1970s. The reviews out of Sundance were mixed – but anything Campos does will get mixed reviews. In a perfect world, I’d be able to see Robert Greene’s Kate Plays Christine – about the same woman, which also debuted at Sundance, and stars Kate Lyn Shiel, and is a mixture of documentary and drama, which also debuted at the same Sundance Film Festival, to stronger reviews – which has just opened in August – but not in my area, so who knows. I’m mixed on Campos myself, but he remains a filmmaker whose films demand to be seen.

 

Gimme Danger (Jim Jarmusch)
The overall strong reviews for Jarmusch’s Iggy Pop and the Stooges documentary out of Cannes was enough to get me over my trepidation over another Jarmusch rock doc – I love him as a filmmaker, but his Neil Young film, Year of the Horse, is downright awful. Still, this should be an interesting look at an interesting subject – even if I wish the other Jarmusch film at TIFF, Paterson, could have fit into my schedule a little more.

 

Heal the Living (Katell Quillevere)
This wasn’t a film that was much on my radar when the schedule first appeared – I am unfamiliar with Quillevere’s other work, and this film kind of sounded like either an Altman wannabe or an episode of ER or Grey’s Anatomy, as it is about multiple storylines that intersect around a hospital, etc. But the cast – including Tahar Rahim (A Prophet), Emmanuel Segnier and Anne Dorval, intrigued me – and the rave review by Variety out of Venice sold me on it. When my first choice for this spot fell through, this was an easy choice – one I made gladly, because I had been kind of angry I was going to miss it. I love making discoveries at TIFF – and here’s hoping Quillevere is one of those for me this year.

 

LBJ (Rob Reiner)
Rob Reiner has directed any number of films I love – This is Spinal Tap, Stand by Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, Misery, A Few Good Men, The American President – and even if the most recent of those was 21 years ago, and I haven’t like all that much since, Reiner strikes me as a decent choice to make a straight down the middle political biopic about Lyndon Johnson. Part of me agrees with all those people who don’t like biopics – but I’m a sucker for political ones in particular – and the idea of watching Woody Harrelson as LBJ and Jennifer Jason Leigh as Ladybird strikes me as something I would like. And if all else fails, at least I know this will finally get me to watch Bryan Cranston in All the Way, which I’ve been meaning to for months (if either that or this is as good as John Frankenheimer’s underrated Path to War with Michael Gambon as Johnson, I’ll be happy).

 

Loving (Jeff Nichols)
Jeff Nichols latest – and second of the year after Midnight Special – got good reviews out of Cannes, and may well be the type of film that does even better in North America than at a place like Cannes. The film stars Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton in the true story of the Lovings – a couple who fought a legal battle for a decade for the right to be married. Since this is a Jeff Nichols film, Michael Shannon is also on board. This doesn’t sound much like Nichols’ other stuff – but given his output so far, I trust him to take me pretty much anywhere.

 

Maliglutit (Searchers) (Zacharias Kunuk)
Last year, Kunuk’s debut film – 2001’s Atanarjuat – was elected the greatest Canadian film of all time – and it’s likely to keep that title for a while, seeing as the #2 film was Claude Jutra’s Mon Oncle Antoine, and that was before the allegations against the late director were made, and the other great Canadian directors – Cronenberg, Egoyan, Maddin, Arcand, Polley, etc. – all have multiple that people vote for, titles, that tend to split the vote for any individual film. Kunuk has spent most of his time producing or directing short docs since the success of Atanarjuat – the one exception being 2006’s The Journals of Knud Rasmussen (which I saw at a test screening – and half the audience walked out), which was greeted with quiet respect from most critics, and little else. Yet, he still has talent, and this one – an Inuit take on John Ford’s The Searchers (1956) – one of the best films ever made, and a film that has inspired many great films (none greater than Taxi Driver, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg), so this one has me kind of excited.

 

Ma’ Rosa (Brillante Ma Mendoza)
One of the many controversial winners at the Cannes Film Festival this year (where the media seemed to prefer films that didn’t win anything, like Toni Erdman), was Jaclyn Jose for Best Actress (the controversy seemed to be more about whether it was a lead or supporting role, rather than the quality of the performance). This movie – about a drug dealer, and corruption on the streets of the Philippines. One of themes of my selections this year’s seems to be catching up with filmmakers I have heard about for years, and never seen films by – Mendoza certainly fits here, as I’ve heard about him since Kinatay, but have yet to see anything by him. Looking forward to doing so.

 

Never Ever (Benoit Jacquot)
French filmmaker Benoit Jacquot has been a filmmaker who I have heard about for years now – films like 3 Hearts, Deep in the Woods, Farewell My Queen, Diary of a Chambermaid, etc. – but I haven’t actually seen anything yet. His latest, based The Body Artist by Don DeLillo, is at TIFF, and it seemed like the time to finally see it. Starring Mathieu Almaric and Julia Roy about a relationship between a filmmaker and a body artist. Looking forward to this one quite a bit.

 

Two Lovers and a Bear (Kim Nguyen)
This is, admittedly, one of my two “filler” titles. Nguyen’s breakthrough film, Rebelle (War Witch), was an Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film – an African set film about child soldiers and the supernatural. He has changed gears more than a little bit here, as he has made a film set in the Arctic – starring Oprhan Black’s Tatiana Maslany and Dane DeHaan – about, yes, Two Lovers. The reviews out of Cannes were mixed, but respectful. I’m interested in this one, but it wasn’t particularly near the top of my list of must-sees.

 

Una (Benedict Andrews)
Benedict Andrews directorial debut inspired praise, debate and controversy when it played at Telluride over the weekend – the only thing everyone seems to agree on is that Rooney Mara is brilliant in the title role. Based on David Harrower’s play Blackbird – which I remember hearing about a decade ago, when it played Broadway with Michelle Williams and Jeff Daniels, this film is about a young woman (Rooney Mara) confronting the older man (Ben Mendolsohn) who raped her as a child. Not for the faint of heart to be sure, but a film that will almost undoubtedly inspired a lot of debate – which is one reason to go to film festivals.

 

The Untamed (Amat Escalante)
Yet another director I’ve heard about for years, but have somehow missed all their films. Mexican director Amat Escalante won the Best Director prize at Cannes for his last film – Heli – which did come out in America, but barely (if I am not mistaken, there is a pubic hair on fire scene in the film, which probably explains that). His latest just debuted at Venice, to mixed reviews, but its combination of domestic drama, sci-fi and horror – apparently heavily influenced by Andrzej Zulawski’s wonderful Possession (1981) – which I watched for the first time earlier this year – makes this one I cannot wait for.

 

Voyage of Time: Life’s Journey (Terrence Malick)
I’m not sure there is another filmmaker other than Malick who could make a film entitled Voyage of Time: Life’s Journey and not sound pretentious (okay, maybe Herzog). This 90 minute doc by Malick is apparently about the history of the universe. No matter what you think of Malick’s latest work, he remains a vital, one-of-a-kind filmmaker, whose films have to be reckoned with. I look forward to doing this once again at TIFF, which is where I saw To the Wonder.

 

Yourself and Yours (Hong Sang-soo)
I only discovered Korean filmmaker Hong Sang-soo a few years ago, and for the most part have really enjoyed his films – none more so than the last one I saw, Right Now, Wrong Then. At TIFF, he’s back with what the program describes as a spin on Luis Bunuel’s That Obscure Object of Desire – his final film (and final masterpiece) – that has me intrigued. One great filmmaker playing on another? I’m in.

Movie Review: Last Days in the Desert

Last Days in the Desert

Directed by: Rodrigo García.

Written by: Rodrigo García.

Starring: Ewan McGregor (Jesus), Ciarán Hinds (Father), Ayelet Zurer (Mother), Tye Sheridan (Son), Susan Gray (Demonic Woman).

 

Rodrigo Garcia’s Last Days in the Desert is a somewhat refreshing Tale of the Christ in that it lacks the overindulgence of the Biblical epics of Hollywood past, and the narrow minded preachiness of the new films aimed squarely at Christians (films like God’s Not Dead for example). It takes Jesus seriously as a character – both his human and God side, in a story that writer/director Rodrigo Garcia has wholly invented. It takes place at the end of Jesus’ time in the desert, on his way to Jerusalem to what we know will be a bloody fate, but he does not. On the way, he happens across a family, and is determined to help them resolve their issues – ones that mirror his own issues with His Father. The Devil, who like Jesus is played by Ewan McGregor, taunts him at times – saying that Jesus is only trying to avoid his fate.

 

The family Jesus comes across is just three people – a teenage Son (Tye Sheridan), who wants to escape from his family and head to Jerusalem himself, his older, strict Father (Ciaran Hinds), who wants to keep him close, and his much younger Mother, Ayelet Zurer, who is slowly dying. Jesus thinks he can come up with a solution that will make all three of them happy – although most in the audience will be like Satan – and know that it isn’t likely to work out that way.

 

I appreciated Garcia’s approach to the material. This is a more down to earth story of the Christ than we normally see – there are no miracles here, although he does levitate once. Like many Biblical stories, it is essentially a parable – but a much darker one than you normally see in New Testament. It is a thoughtful film – one of those rare ones that paint Jesus as a person of doubt and introspection, and essentially tells a story in which he does not succeed in doing what he sets out to do. Visually, the film is gorgeous – as any film shot by Emmanuel Lubezki – winner of the last three cinematography Oscars – is. Unlike the film Lubezki has won for – from directors Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity) and Alejandro G. Innaritu (Birdman, The Revenant), the camera here isn’t constantly in motion. Like the film, it quieter movement, and gorgeous imagery.

 

Yet, as much as I admired parts of the film – Ewan McGregor’s performance among them – I don’t think that Last Days in the Desert ultimately adds up to very much. The film has a slow pace, which at times is fitting to the subject matter, and at times, just plain dull. Ultimately, Last Days in the Desert is a film whose intentions I admire, but I cannot say that I enjoyed watching the film, and it’s all just a little too thin to give you much to chew on when it’s over. I wish we had more religious films like this – but I also wish this one was just a little bit better.

Movie Review: Holy Hell

Holy Hell

Directed by: Will Allen.

 

I find cults utterly fascinating, mostly because I want to know how people find themselves under their spell in the first place. When I watch a film like Holy Hell, and here the Cult leader – named Michel (at least at first, he’ll have more times in time), talk about his beliefs, and nature, and on and on, I feel my eyes rolling so hard they practically fall out of my head. How are people like Michel able to convince so many people to follow them, especially since it doesn’t seem like he has all that much of a belief system to cling to? Will Allen, who directed the film, which is made up of footage he shot during the 22 year period he was in the cult – beginning in the 1980s – interspersed with interview footage with people, who like him are now former members, really should have been able to answer that question. The problem is though that it never really does. For a film that is directed by a former member – one who was close to the leader for decades, who was perhaps his chief propagandist, who ends up being both a victim of the leader, and complicit in other victimization, we never really get a sense of who the hell Allen is. It is the type of gaping hole at the center of a supposed first person documentary that the film cannot recover from.

 

The opening scenes in the film show Allen as a movie loving kid – remaking (or ripping off) his favorite 1970s blockbusters with his Super 8 camera. He realizes he is gay – his parents aren’t over excepting of it, and then all of a sudden, it’s the 1980s and he’s in the cult. It starts out in California, with a small group who worship Michel, who gives strange talks about life, love, sex (he doesn’t like sex), physical perfection (no fatties allowed here), etc. He puts them all through a lot of ballet classes, and demands perfection from everyone. They will spend months rehearsing elaborate ballets that they will perform once, for themselves, and then never again. Unlike a lot of cults, this one doesn’t live altogether on a compound – but have their own homes and jobs, although Michel does encourage them to cut off all contact with their family, and they are required to go to weekly cleansing sessions with him – for $50 fee of course. Authorities in California start to get suspicious, so Michel hits the road – eventually winding up in Texas and sending for his people. He gets paranoid around the time of David Koresh and the Branch Davidians – although again there is no compound, no guns, no child brides, so people pretty much leave them alone.

 

We know from the beginning that something is wrong here – something doesn’t quite feel right from the start (hint, it’s about sex – it’s ALWAYS about sex), but the movie takes a shocking long time to get to that point. It’s painful to hear the stories about what happened when we eventually do to be sure. Yet, what’s missing is any sort of real introspection on behalf of Allen himself – of how he allowed himself to be suckered by Michel in the first place, and why he stayed so long. His documentary is hurt by the fact he admits that every time Michel yelled, he turned off the camera, so while there is a lot of footage of Michel being goofy and creepy – there isn’t very much of this dark side we hear about.

 

Movies about cults, especially those from the inside, need to show the audience what it was like on the inside – make us understand why people started, and why they stayed, even when things turned bad. Holy Hell doesn’t really do either of those things – and the film doesn’t really work as a result.

Classic Movie Review: The Brood (1979)

The Brood (1979)

Directed by: David Cronenberg.

Written by: David Cronenberg.

Starring: Oliver Reed (Dr. Hal Raglan), Samantha Eggar (Nola Carveth), Art Hindle (Frank Carveth), Henry Beckman (Barton Kelly), Nuala Fitzgerald (Juliana Kelly), Cindy Hinds (Candice Carveth), Susan Hogan (Ruth Mayer), Gary McKeehan (Mike Trellan), Michael Magee (Inspector), Robert A. Silverman (Jan Hartog).

 

David Cronenberg’s The Brood was hardly a critical favorite when it was released back in 1979 – and I think it’s fair to say that if Cronenberg had not had gone onto the have the career he has had since, that The Brood would most likely have been largely forgotten by now – and it certainly would not have gotten a high profile release on the Criterion Collection a while back. Taken as a film unto itself, The Brood is an effective horror movie – creepy and chilling, with one of the grossest, most memorable climaxes you could come up with, but is also a rather silly film, whose basic elements do not make a whole lot of sense. The movie largely overcomes those deficiencies though, because what works about The Brood works really, really well. It’s also fairly clear though, that The Brood has become better remembered than it would otherwise be, because of Cronenberg – and because of how many of his pet themes are very much present in the film. He would go onto refine these themes in later, better movies – just as The Brood represents a step-up from his first two films, Shivers and Rabid, which on some level addressed the same concerns.

 

The film’s main character is not one of two top billed stars, but rather it’s Frank Carveth (Art Hindle), whose wife, Nola (Samantha Eggar) is under the care of Dr. Hal Raglan (Oliver Reed) – an unconventional doctor who specializes in “psychoplasmics” – in which mental anguish and pain manifests itself physically. Frank has, in many ways, given up on his wife – but he is legally obligated to allow his daughter – around 6 – visit her mother in the hospital every weekend. When she comes back with wounds all over her, he is determined to stop these visits – but is told if he does, he will lose custody completely (that makes absolutely no sense, but whatever). So, he decides to investigate Raglan to prove that he is crackpot – and dangerous – and that his daughter will be in danger if she keeps going. As he starts investigating, a series of grisly murders starts striking those close to him – and seemingly committed by one or more dwarfs or small children. What he eventually discovers is more shocking than he ever would have imagined.

 

It is perhaps the least surprising news ever to find out that when Cronenberg was making The Brood he was going through a rather bitter divorce and custody battle. If you were feeling ungenerous to the film, you could almost see it as a horror film in which the worst nightmare of “Men’s Right Activists” comes true. Frank is clearly the better, more responsible parent – he is Candice’s best interests at heart, does everything he can to protect her – but he’s stuck in a society in which he has no chance to win in court against the mother. The portrait of motherhood on display in The Brood is perhaps the most disturbing and poisoned that one could conceive. Apparently Samantha Eggar only shot for 4 days on the movie – and yet, it is Nola who everyone remembers in the film. The finale, in which we discover her secret (SPOILER WARNING) is which the dwarfs who have gone on a killing spree are the physical manifestations of her rage – that she birthed and carrying in an external womb. Yet, there is something tender even in the film’s most infamous disgusting moment – when she births a new one, and then likes the blood off of her new offspring.

 

To think, however, that the film is misogynistic would only to be looking at the very top part of the surface of the film – because in The Brood, both parents will end up doing some pretty horrible things – it’s just that Nola’s are more obvious. Frank keeps leaving Candy with others – as he goes off on his search, prioritizing his desire to win custody of his child, over his child – and often it’s in those moments where the killer dwarfs from Nola strike – Candice witnesses her grandmother beaten to death by the dwarves, and later, will see her beloved teacher suffer the same fate. The climax of the movie involves quite literally a fight to the death between the two parents – a fight in which both of them don’t try and save their daughter, who is at the mercy of the murderous dwarves at the time. The ending of the movie seems like a normal one – the “good” guy prevails, while the evil woman is punished – yet by then the damage has been done. The good guy has become a murderer – and the scars that both parents have inflicted on their daughter are permanent. The Brood is a divorce drama disguised as a horror film.

 

You would also need to ignore the fact that Nola, for all of her faults, was somewhat powerless over what she becomes. Like her daughter, she was first marked by her parents’ divorce – which has haunted her until her adulthood, where she believes her mother was abusive to her (whether or not she was, remains unresolved – although the film certainly hints that at best, he mother is an alcoholic). Her husband clearly never understood her, and wanted her to be more “normal’ – something to drove her even more crazy. All this doesn’t even mention Dr. Hal Raglan, a classic Cronenberg creation – the male doctor who experiments on and exploits female subjects, and then is horrified by the results. Cronenberg has always been fascinated by psychology – although he has often found it be extremely problematic – no more so than in The Brood, where it is quite literally responsible for what happens.

 

All of this makes The Brood sound fairly fascinating – and I didn’t even mention the fine role for Cronenberg favorite Robert Silverman – and it really is. The Brood is a film who’s surface level is, as Roger Ebert described it at the time of its release an “el sleazo exploitation film” (he wasn’t a fan) – but when you start peeling back the layers, you find a surprisingly complex film. And yet, it really must be said that analyzing the film is more interesting than actually watching much of it – Frank does make for a rather dull protagonist, and even if Oliver Reed and Samantha Eggar kind of make up for that, with their over the top performances (Eggar in particular is wonderful). But stretches of the movie are rather dull, and some of the scenes involving the dwarf killers are not as effective as they should (they actually more effective in quieter moments, where they aren’t murdering anyone).

 

Cronenberg would go on to make better films that explore the connection between the body and the mind – The Dead Zone, Videodrome and The Fly were all less than a decade away, and all of them are better films. The Brood is a fascinating film in many ways – but it is a perfect example of a film that is helped by auteur theory – it’s more interesting when taken as a part of Cronenberg’s whole filmography, than a film unto itself.