Classic Double Movie Review: The Killers (1946 and 1964)

The Killers (1946)

Directed by: Robert Siodmak.
Written by: Anthony Veiller based on the short story by Ernest Hemingway.
Starring: Burt Lancaster (Ole “Swede” Anderson), Ava Gardner (Kitty Collins), Edmond O’Brien (Jim Reardon),
Albert Dekker (Big Jim Colfax), Sam Levene (Police Lt. Sam Lubinsky), Vince Barnett (Charleston), Virginia Christine (Lilly Harmon Lubinsky), Jack Lambert (Dum-Dum Clarke), Charles D. Brown (Packy Robinson – Ole’s Manager), Don MacBride (R.S. Kenyon), Charles McGraw (Al), William Conrad (Max).
 
The Killers (1964)
Directed by: Don Siegel.
Written by: Gene L. Coon based on the short story by Ernest Hemingway.
Starring: Lee Marvin (Charlie Strom), Angie Dickinson (Sheila Farr), John Cassavetes (Johnny North), Clu Gulager (Lee), Ronald Reagan (Jack Browning), Claude Akins (Earl Sylvester), Norman Fell (Mickey Farmer), Virginia Christine (Miss Watson).

There’s no real point in denying that the opening of Richard Siodmak’s classic noir The Killers (1946) is better than the rest of the movie – and it’s also easy to figure out why. The opening scene, in which two hired killers enter a small town lunch counter, try to order off the dinner menu, even though it’s not quite 6 o’clock yet, then proceed to tell the counterman that they are here to kill the Swede – and they hear he comes in every night at 6 for dinner. They intimidate the counterman, tie up the cook and the only other customer in the place, before leaving – correctly figuring the Swede isn’t coming that day. The other customer, Nick Adams, then goes to the Swede to tell him that there are men there to kill him – and the Swede doesn’t react, doesn’t try to run away, he simply accepts his fate. We don’t actually see the killing itself – but we know it has happened, and Adams determines he is going to leave this small town behind – no one much cares about what happened. That opening – which maybe runs 15 minutes or so is pretty much the exact Ernest Hemingway short story that the film is adapting. It then spends roughly 90 minutes answering the question of why – what n happened to bring the Swede to that point – that Hemingway never answered. The film is terrific all the way through – those last 90 minutes borrows Citizen Kane’s structure – as an insurance investigator, Jim Reardon (Edmond O’Brien) pieces together what happened by interviewing people who knew the Swede (Burt Lancaster, in his first screen role) – and we see it play out in flashback – a classic noir structure complete with a femme fatale (Ava Gardner), a heist and double crosses. But as great as those 90 minutes are, the opening 15 represent one of the greatest scene in film history.

When Don Siegel remade The Killers in 1964, he pretty much chucks the whole thing out – gone is Hemingway’s great opening sequence, but also gone is practically everything else. This time, there is no insurance investigator – it’s the hitmen themselves – Charlie Storm (Lee Marvin) and his younger partner Lee (Clu Gulager) who do the investigating. They surmise, much like O’Brien did in the original, that it is odd that they were hired to kill someone who apparently was involved in a robbery and made off with all the cash, and not try and get the cash back. In the words of Lee Marvin here – “the only people who don’t miss a million dollars are people who have a million dollars”. Siodmak’s film is a classic – one of the best noirs of its kind. Siegel’s film has become legendary in its own way – it prefigures the type of roles that would make Lee Marvin an icon, it inspired, and anticipates, Quentin Tarantino and is the last film ever made by future President Ronald Reagan – his first playing the villain, and shows that perhaps that he missed his calling as an actor (he is very convincing as the heavy”. Both are films that are products of their time and place – and in that they are fascinating.

The 1946 The Killers was made at the height of classic film noir. Once that opening is over, it pretty much falls into the familiar arch of noir – albeit with the Citizen Kane structure which makes it slightly more ambitious. Lancaster, a hunk of man, leading with his chin, is perfect here as the foil – a boxer whose career ends, and then gets sucked into a criminal life by a femme fatale – beautifully played by Ava Gardner. He tries to get out of that life – to live a small town life as a gas station attendant, but is recognized and knows he’s doomed (prefiguring Robert Mitchum in Out of the Past the following year – an even better noir). You cannot escape the sins of the past.

Siegel’s 1964 The Killers is a different sort of film – it started out as supposedly being made as TV movie – although the murderers row of talent – Marvin, Reagan, John Cassavetes, Angie Dickinson – make that odd, that turned into a theatrical movie mainly because it ended up too violent. The opening scene here is Marvin and Gulager walking into a school for the blind (the extras actually being blind) where Johnny North (Cassavetes) is a teacher, and gunning him down – which may have been enough right there. The infamous slap Reagan gives Dickinson – so casual, so sudden, so shocking – also didn’t help much.This time though the lyrics may be the same, but the music is different. Johnny North isn’t a boxer, but a race car driver. Once again though, he falls head over heels for a woman – Dickinson’s Sheila Farr – and ends up ruining his career, and being drawn into a robbery – where apparently he betrayed his cohorts, but it may not be that simple. The 1946 The Killers already didn’t have much use for the police – it is telling that it is an insurance investigator (perhaps a nod to Double Indemnity) not the cops who investigate in 1946 – the cops even say they don’t much care – they didn’t know the Swede well, he only arrived a year ago, the killers came and went, and there’s no danger to anyone else in town – so let the State Police handle it. Even that is thrown out though in the 1964 version – the killers themselves become the investigators. You can see why Tarantino loved the killers played by Marvin and Gulager so much that he copied their outfits for Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. They have a strange banter between them – not the chilling cold bloodedness of the killers from 1946 – but a casualness that is also disturbing. Siegel highlights the differences between them in their banter. Marvin would play this type of role to perfection later on – and it’s close to it here as well. Dickinson’s role here is underwritten – she is a femme fatale in some respects, but not really – she’s more a pawn than Gardner was – powerless, instead of in control. Cassavetes, who was a great actor, although perhaps not here, sneers his way through this role – he isn’t the innocent stooge Lancaster played, but far more cynical. Reagan really is quite good here as the villain – not because he twirls a mustache, but more in the casual, corporate boringness his performance – this is true evil, a nice suit in a nice office, who seems like a man who would sell you insurance.

It’s undeniable that the 1964 film was made on the cheap – Siegel was still establishing himself, and after all, it was supposed to go to TV. And yet, the sets, which looks makeshift and disposable, somehow add to the film. The film is bright and in color – leaving behind the masterful use of shadows and grey of the black and white original. It’s a cynical movie – it ends with pretty much everyone dead – and perhaps shows the way towards the future of American filmmaking in the later 1960s and 1970s – of cynicism, and violence without purpose.

All of that perhaps make Siegel’s film sound like a masterpiece – but it really isn’t. There are lumps and bumps throughout the film – far more than the original – and as an overall film, it’s nowhere near as good. Yet, it’s impossible to deny its historical importance – it’s place in cinema history. I’ve seen both films before – and liked both of them more this time. The make a fascinating double bill – not just because both films are good to great – but for what it meant about the very different circumstances, and eras, in which they were made.

Movie Review: Sea Fever

Sea Fever *** / *****
Directed by: Neasa Hardiman.
Written by: Neasa Hardiman.
Starring: Hermione Corfield (Siobhan), Dougray Scott (Gerard), Connie Nielsen (Freya), Ardalan Esmaili (Omid), Jack Hickey (Johnny), Olwen Fouere (Clara), Elie Bouakaze (Sudi).

The Irish, sea-farring horror film, Sea Fever, kind of plays like a feature version of a cold open of an X-Files episode – those small vignettes that let us see part of what Mulder and Scully will be investigating that week. It isn’t the most original horror film – you can certainly see its influences like Ridley Scott’s Alien in the first half, and John Carpenter’s The Thing in the second, but debut filmmaker Neasa Hardiman does give the film a nice, lived in quality to it – the characters are not cookie cutters, and you can feel what life aboard this small, fishing vessel would be like – how difficult and claustrophobic it would be, even without the horror elements.

The star of the film is Siobhan (Hermione Corfield), a young scientist, who is even more of an introvert in a field full of them. We see her pouring over data in a lab, while the rest of her co-workers celebrate with birthday cake – her professor urging her to interact with others. Things don’t get easier for her when she boards the small fishing boat that will be her home for a few weeks. She is there to study the anomalies in the daily catch made by the crew – led by captain Gerard (Dougray Scott) and his wife Freya (Connie Nielsen). It’s and a small crew other than that – engineer Omid (Ardalan Esmaili), along with a cook Clara (Olwen Fouere) and two more men for good measure – Johnny (Jack Hickey) and Sudi (Elie Bouakaze). Siobhan would be an outsider regardless – and it’s played up just how much, since she has scientific explanations that the rest of the crew chalk up to myths and superstitions. Those superstitions include Siobhan’s red hair being a bad omen. The crew though is friendly to Siobhan – it’s clear Gerard and Freya wouldn’t have allowed her on her board if they weren’t being paid – and their own financial situation contributes to why they do it even then.

Things get ominous when the boat enters a zone that they have been told by the coast guard is off limits. This is a blow to them, because that is where their catch is, so when they drift into it, Gerard doesn’t do anything to stop them – and soon they are hauling in a lot of fish. But they hit something, and it’s clear something isn’t quite right. Siobhan has to dive into the water – she can scuba dive, the rest can’t – and is shocked to find that the boat is covered in tentacles – that stretch farther than she can see. Are they being held by some sort of massive creature? Perhaps, but the more pressing concerns is the strange, unknown larva in their drinking water – which they see has no good effects on human pretty quickly.

The film was made, and played the festival circuit last year, but certainly the current situation helps to give the film added resonance. Siobhan is smart enough to know that they have no idea what this larva is – and that it is deadly. There is a lot of talk about quarantine when (if) they are able to make it back to shore – which will certainly get under the skin of people living in 2020, as it mirrors the conversations we are currently having.

The film wasn’t made on a large budget – but Hardiman and company make the most of it. The special effects are limited, but effective. What they do better is to slowly turn the screws on the crew – ratcheting up the tension, as the inevitable starts happening (remember the two films referenced above – they were for a reason). What makes the film interesting however is that you actually do care for the characters – Siobhan the most, but also everyone else. Hardiman doesn’t cheat here – she doesn’t just line the sheep up for the slaughter, but makes you care about the sheep first. She also has a terrific sense of atmosphere on board that boat. One hopes that in her next film, she perhaps tries to be more ambitious – Sea Fever works quite well, but you always know where it’s going, and it somehow feels a little smaller than it is. Still, it’s a fine debut from a very promising filmmaker.

Movie Review: Unhinged

Unhinged ** ½ / *****
Directed by: Derrick Borte.
Written by: Carl Ellsworth.
Starring: Russell Crowe (The Man), Caren Pistorius (Rachel), Jimmi Simpson (Andy), Gabriel Bateman (Kyle), Anne Leighton (Deborah Haskell), Lucy Faust (Rosie), Austin P. McKenzie (Fred), Michael Papajohn (Cop), Sylvia Grace Crim (Teacher), Stephen Louis Grush (Leo), Juliene Joyner (Mary).

Yes, I went to the movie theatre for the first time since March when I saw First Cow less than week before theatres closed due to Covid-19 pandemic. I didn’t go because I felt some unrelenting need to see Russell Crowe play a road-raging psycho – I went because I know I will be going to see Tenet when it opens next week, and I wanted to go on a dry run to see what it’s like. I should point out that I live in Canada – where the virus, while certainly still around, isn’t as bad as it is in America – and in an area where we currently only have four active cases, and only about 150 during the entire pandemic. I purposefully chose the last show of the day – a 10:30 PM show, which was just 15 minutes after the second last show of Unhinged of the day (which according to the seating chart online had a few more people in it than mine did) – I showed up at 10:28, hands freshly sanitized, wearing a mask, and was relieved to find that I was the only person in that screening. I didn’t buy concessions, I sanitized my hands again when I got to my reserved seat, and never once took my mask off. Movie going during a pandemic will never be completely safe – nothing except staying home will be – but I also know that if no one goes to the movies, staying as safe as humanly possible during the pandemic, no one will be able to go after the pandemic is over. I won’t fault anyone who doesn’t feel safe going, and passes – but if the experience is much like what I had tonight, I will continue to do so.

The movie both is and isn’t the ideal one to resume my movie going life with – it isn’t, because unlike when it looked like my last theatrical experience would be First Cow, I cannot say that at least I went out watching a great film. But it is, because I was nervous enough about going that I didn’t actually make my final decision until I was on my way out the door – so at least the film was completely unchallenging, and didn’t require my full attention. Unhinged is the type of film you may expect to go straight to streaming – a kind of paycheque movie for a great actor like Crowe (seriously, why is an actor who at one point looked to be one of the greats of generation with performances like L.A. Confidential, The Insider, etc. doing this movie?). It’s a cheapie thriller, where Crowe plays a psychopath – and you know he’s a psychopath from the first scene, where we see him break into his former house, kill his wife and new boyfriend/husband (not sure, it’s seen in long shot so you don’t get details), set the house on fire and then speed away in his pickup truck. His innocent target is Rachel (Caren Pistorius) a woman going through a divorce of her own, with a pre-teen son, a slacker brother and his girlfriend living at her house, and money problems. She gets frustrated driving her son to school – they are late, again – and honks at the wrong pickup when he doesn’t go through when the light turns green. That, of course, is Crowe – who pulls alongside her at the next light, and chastises her. Yes, he zoned out at that light, but she could have at least given her a courtesy tap right. He apologizes, and says if she does the same, they can just go on their own separate ways. She refuses – thus setting up the rest of the movie, where he is determined to make sure she knows what a bad day really is.

Crowe is clearly over-qualified for the role – but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t give it his all. He is an imposing physical presence – a huge, bulking man whose days of being the lean and muscular man we saw in Gladiator is decades in the past. He effects a drawl on his speech, which is all the scarier because of how calmly he uses it. That goes for most his actions as well – no matter how violent, he does it all with a cruel, casualness of someone who knows that he’ll prevail. He knows his days are numbered – they’re already looking for him because of the double murder – and suicide by cop sounds okay to him. Until then though, he’s going to continue to commit as much violence as humanly possible.

I kept hoping that the movie may try to go a little deeper than it does. There are certainly hints of the roots of Crowe’s rage here – he spews vitriol that sounds like it could come out of the mouth of a Men’s Rights Activist, and a news report gives a few background tidbits that make him sound like one Trump’s forgotten Americans that he exploits while not given a shit about them. But the film doesn’t seem overly interested in any of it rather than as background noise. It wants to be a straight ahead thriller – a cat and mouse game. I will say that the film doesn’t really pull any punches in terms of the violence – it’s pretty hard edged, but doesn’t dwell on it – it’s shock and awe tactics are pretty effective. The plotting of the movie is obvious – we see has things are introduced casually in the first act – a pair of scissors, a strategy for Fortnite, etc. that will become key in the last act.

In short, Unhinged a cheapie thriller – made to make a quick buck for Crowe, and all involved. It’s from an upstart distributor, who really wanted to be the first wide release movie to come out after the pandemic – a way to perhaps get more attention, eyeballs and money than it otherwise would get. I will likely never forget Tenet, as it was my first movie back in theatres after my longest layoff in 25 years – and with any luck, the longest layoff I will ever have. It will have little to do with the movie itself however.

Movie Review: She Dies Tomorrow

She Dies Tomorrow **** ½ / *****
Directed by: Amy Seimetz.
Written by: Amy Seimetz.
Starring: Kate Lyn Sheil (Amy), Jane Adams (Jane), Kentucker Audley (Craig), Katie Aselton (Susan), Chris Messina (Jason), Tunde Adebimpe (Brian), Jennifer Kim (Tilly), Olivia Taylor Dudley (Erin), Josh Lucas (Doc), Michelle Rodriguez (Sky), Adam Wingard (Dune Buggy Man), Madison Calderon (Madison).

Too few people saw Amy Seimetz’s wonderful directorial debut – Sun Don’t Shine (2012), which featured a wonderful performance by indie mainstay Kate Lyn Sheil, which was released in the aftermath of Shane Carruth’s remarkable Upstream Color (2013) – a mistake I hope people are rectifying in the wake of all the deserved praise She Dies Tomorrow is receiving (the history of abuse Seimetz has suffered at the hands of Carruth casts an unfortunate, but undeniable, dark cloud over Upstream Color – which is a truly great movie, and not just Carruth’s achievement – as Seimetz’s amazing performance in that film should have won her an Oscar – and really makes the entire film work – but we may never be able to watch the film the same way again). As a director, Seimetz doesn’t like exposition – she dives right into her stories midstream, and makes you catch up with them. She Dies Tomorrow is a remarkable film – mainly plotless, mainly about death, and Seimetz has perhaps inadvertently made the film that best sums up 2020.

The film opens on the wonderfully expressive face of Kate Lyn Shiel – who plays a character named Amy (perhaps marking the film as at least somewhat autobiographical for Seimetz). It’s clear that Amy is in some sort of extreme breakdown – but it only becomes clear what it is slowly. She is convinced, absolutely convinced, that she is going to die tomorrow – how or why, she doesn’t know, or doesn’t reveal – but she just knows. This remarkable first scene continues – and shows you what the style of the movie is going to be – eventually Amy will stare into the lights coming from a room in her house – we see her face as she stares, not what she is looking at.

At some point during this scene, Amy talks on the phone to Jane (Jane Adams, another indie mainstay who can always be counted on to deliver great work). She is tired of Amy’s breakdowns – and doesn’t know what to do with this one. But once off the phone with her, she too, is filled with the overwhelming sense that she will die tomorrow. She crashes a birthday party thrown by her brother Jason (Chris Messina) for his wife Susan (Katie Aselton) – with another couple. Susan, like Jane with Amy, is tired of these breakdowns of Jane’s – thinks it’s always about putting the attention on herself. Soon though, each person at the party has the same sense – they will die tomorrow. And they will all look into the lights at some point, at something we don’t know. The lights are different colors for each of them though – implying, of course, that whatever lies ahead, it’s different for each of them.

This is how Seimetz makes her remarkable film. The film will flash back and forth in time, again, not explaining the how or why of it all, trusting the audience to figure it all out, and between all these characters. Her years in the indie world have certainly meant that she has made a lot of contacts – a lot of friends – and her film is full of talented actor for Shiel and Adams and Messina and Aselton to Tunde Adebimpe, Jennifer Kim, Olivia Taylor Dudley, Adam Wingard (who directed Seimetz in the really good horror film You’re Next) – and even some more “mainstream” talent like Josh Lucas (whose best work was in the indie The Mend) and Michelle Rodriguez. These actors all undeniably help Seimetz, as they deliver wonderful, and often small, performances. No one is better than Shiel – an actress always worth watching in anything (seriously, her performances, both large and small in films as varied as The Color Wheel, You’re Next, Sun Don’t Shine, The Sacrament, Listen Up Philip – where she hilariously has one scene, and runs away from the main character, making her the sanest one in it - , The Heart Machine, Queen of Earth, Brigsby Bear and the “documentary” Kate Plays Christine – and many, many more is as impressive as any actress working today). She and Seimetz are clearly on the same wavelength here – and she delves as deep as she ever has before.

The film itself is remarkable. It reminded me a little of Lars von Trier’s Melancholia – a film I have been meaning to revisit, as I loved much of it, but also felt Trier’s mocking on some characters was so overly harsh that it keeps me from loving it as much as some of his other work. That film is about the coming apocalypse – and how each of the characters handle it. She Dies Tomorrow is the same thing, on a smaller, more intimate scale – our own, personal apocalypse as it were that comes for all of us. The characters in the film don’t band together to face the threat together – they are isolated, alone in it. We all face death by ourselves, staring into our own personal light.

This may sound like a downer of a film, but it isn’t. At times it doesn’t play like a horror film – the fear experienced is surely visceral at moments to be sure. At times, it is an insanely dark comedy – like everything to do with the leather jacket. It is a film about death – so it’s not a pick-me-up – but it’s not a depressing dirge either. It shows what a talented filmmaker Seimetz is – and hopefully, we don’t have to wait another 8 years for her follow-up.

Movie Review: Boys State

Boys State **** / *****
Directed by: Jesse Moss & Amanda McBaine.

Boys State is a documentary that, as the cliché goes, will make you both hopeful and depressed about future generations, and their attitude about politics. It takes place at the annual event put on the American Legion, where they select 1,000 young men from a state, and allow them to, over the course of a week, form their own government (there is a separate event for women – and I really want to see someone make Girl’s State). This one is set in 2018 in Texas – and perhaps was the place selected by directors Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine (who together made the excellent doc The Overnighters back in 2014) because the year before, the boys voted to secede from America – the type of headlining grabbing event that make people roll their eyes. The young men are split into two parties at random – the Federalist and the Nationalists – and have to elect a State Chair, local representatives, etc. – run primaries for major offices, the key one being Governor – and then running a campaign to see how wins. They don’t do a lot of actual governing – it’s more about the process.

 Whether the filmmakers meant it to or not, this year’s Texas Boys State gave them the perfect opportunity to show both the positive, and negative, side of American politics. It breaks down nicely too – with the Nationalists ending up more on the positive, idealistic side – and Federalists giving into the type of dirty politics than Americans claim to be sick of, being seemingly wins anyway. Rene Otero runs for, and wins the State Party chair for the Nationalists – and is a smart, charming, young man, who leans to the progressive side of the political spectrum, even as he knows he is entering a world where everyone is more conservative than he is (for example, both parties seem to end up pro-gun and pro-life). He knows how to play the game though – and even manipulate it for his own purposes, while not leaving aside his ideals. The soft spoken Steven Garza, barely gets enough signatures to get on the ballot for the Governor for the Nationalists, but ends up winning the nomination – on the strength of his speeches, his idealism, and his honesty. When it comes to light that he led a March for Life event in Houston – which is pro-gun control, in a state where almost no one is, he doesn’t back down from it, doesn’t back away – he explains it in a way that turns even more people to his side. You leave the movie, despite all that happens, hoping that both of these young men continue in politics.

The Federalist side, not so much. The State Party Chair there is won by Ben Feinstein – a double amputee due to meningitis. He had set his sights on Governor, but when it becomes clear that won’t happen, he contents himself on being the power behind the throne – the dirty trickster. The Federalist Governor candidate ends up being Eddy – who everyone compares to Ben Shapiro – here proving that to some people that is something to aspire to. If Otero and Garza aspire to politics to try and do something good – to change society for the better – it seems like Eddy, and particularly Feinstein, are in it to win it.

It isn’t that simple of course. Other people are in the documentary – the most memorable may well be Robert, a real live Richard Linklater character, a tall athletic, charming kid who is used to getting what he wants, runs  - for Governor of the Nationalists – openly admits to the camera that he is lying about some of his positions (he is pro-choice for example although he campaign as the exact opposite– as a side note, it’s bizarre and kind of disturbing how passionate all these boys are on the subject of abortion), and he loses to Garza – because people respond to his authenticity – instead of Robert’s cynicism. Hopefully, it’s a lesson Robert learns.

But ultimately, it may not be the one that the kids take away from Boys State – which is depressing in some ways, because normally we can at least count on the young people in the country to be idealistic that’s why the Parkland kids inspired so many. The lesson at the heart of Boys State – at least the one the kids involved seem to take away – is how to win. It doesn’t matter what you stand for, so long as you win. If they’re this cynical at 17, that doesn’t bode well for the future. Everyone learned something during their time at Boys State – some learned the right lessons, and some decidedly did not.

Movie Review: Spree

Spree ** / *****
Directed by: Eugene Kotlyarenko.
Written by: Eugene Kotlyarenko and Gene McHugh.
Starring: Joe Keery (Kurt Kunkle), Sasheer Zamata (Jessie Adams), David Arquette (Kris Kunkle), Kyle Mooney (Miles Manderville), Misha Barton (London), Frankie Grande (Richard), Lala Kent (Kendra), Joshua Ovalle (Bobby), Reatha Grey (Grandma Adams), Caroline Hebert (Daisy), Sunny Kim (uNo), Linas Phillips (Frederick), John DeLuca (Mario), Jessalyn Gilsig (Andrea), Sean Avery (Officer Hall), Victor Winters-Junco (Officer Hernandez), Amir M. Korangy (Davit the GoGo Driver).

 

So far it seems like filmmakers are not up to the task of depicting the kind of everyday violence, committed by angry, very online young white men that grows out a mixture of loneliness and misogyny and inflicted on the world as “payback”. Perhaps it’s because the filmmakers who are mainly making movies about them are themselves, white men – but they seem incapable of fully depicting the anger and misogyny, and instead too often depict their central characters as they seem themselves – as victims of the online society that has left them behind, rather than the angry, violent men that they are. Like Todd Phillips completely misreading Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy in last year’s Joker – making the Bickle/Pupkin character in a victim rather than a violent man looking for an outlet for that violence, or the recent The Hater, which didn’t seem to have handle on its character at all, the recent film Spree – about a young man named Kurt Kunkle (Joe Keery) – who has attempted to build a social media following, and completely failed, leading to the wild night depicted in the film – where he works as a Spree driver (think Uber) – where he kills many of his passengers, and livestreams it all (still failing to gather a following) seems to think that Kurt is a victim of this society, rather than a lonely, angry, misogynistic psychopath. I’ve seen the film compared to American Psycho – if only that were true. The film version of American Psycho, is superior to the book version, specifically because director Mary Harron and her co-writer Guinevere Turner, come at Patrick Bateman from a completely different point-of-view making him far more pathetic than the alpha-male posturing of Bret Easton Ellis’ novel. If only we had their version of Spree.

Spree is another film than takes place entirely online – mostly the livestream that Kunkle runs throughout the night in his car – equipped with multiple cameras for different angles, but also some different perspectives as well (different people’s videos and livestreams, etc.). We are informed early that Kunkle has been trying to gain a following for 10 years – but his videos rarely hit double digits in views (the way we are informed of this, via onscreen text implies that we are watching some sort of documentary – but it’s confusing because it’s pretty much abandoned from then on). What we see from there, is how Kunkle’s night unfolds – from his first passenger, an angry, older white man spewing racism that drinks the poisoned water bottle Kunkle has put out for his passengers, to more and more extreme violence Kunkle commits throughout the night. Keery, very good on Stranger Things, is good here as well – a smiling psycho, who never drops his cheerful, online brand – the man with the plan, who wants to impart on his fans “The Lesson”.

The film muddies the water too much though with the introduction of Jessie Adams (Sasheer Zamata), an up-and-coming black standup comedian, with a huge online presence – she has everything that Kurt wants, and cannot get. She gets into his Spree – alongside another passenger (it’s Spree social) – but when she gets out, unscathed, the film and Kurt don’t abandon her either. We keep coming back to her – and know her path will cross with Kurt’s again before the night is out.

I know what co-writer/director Eugene Kotlyarenko is doing here – after introducing us to Kurt, then the angry older Fox News viewer, and the bro-y frat boy Mario – all of whom have a version of the angry white man shtick going, he wants to introduce a new perspective – one decidedly not white, and not male. In theory, this is the smart move – by showing the perspective of the type of person who is too often the victim of this online hate, you cannot be accused of being locked into the perspective of the perpetrator of it and feeling sympathy for it In practice though, it doesn’t work at all – as both Adams stand-up set that goes viral, and the end of the film, heavily implies that Adams is a huge part of the problem in the first place – and although, like Bickle in Taxi Driver, she is treated like a hero by the media, the movie makes you think she shouldn’t be.

In short, Spree is another film that tries to address the issue of online hate, of violence spreading from the digital world, to the real world – but it’s another one that doesn’t quite understand what the issue is at all. Or maybe, it does – and the execution is just way off. And it’s all wrapped in a package so extreme – the violence is almost comically over-the-top that whatever message the filmmakers are trying to send, doesn’t come through at all.

Movie Review: Amulet

Amulet *** ½ / *****
Directed by: Romola Garai.
Written by: Romola Garai.
Starring: Carla Juri (Magda), Alec Secareanu (Tomas), Imelda Staunton (Sister Claire), Anah Ruddin (Mother), Angeliki Papoulia (Miriam), Elowen Harris (Dina), William E. Lester (Mother - voice).

Actress Romola Garai makes a promising directorial debut with the feminist horror parable Amulet. You don’t quite realize just how feminist it is until the final act, as Garai only slowly reveals the truth about the all the people involved – but the finale really does hit hard. The film is gorgeous to look at – clearly inspired by giallo horror movies, Garai has made a visual stunner. Her storytelling is perhaps not quite up to that level – there is perhaps too many twists and turns, handled a little awkwardly – and the confusion the audience feels at certain points is perhaps not entirely on purpose. Yet, overall, Amulet marks the announcement of a major new talent behind the camera for horror movies – and I cannot wait to see what happens next in her career.

Tomas (Alec Secareanu) is a day laborer living in extreme poverty on the outskirts of London. A former soldier, racked with guilt over his actions in “the war” (what war, is not really made clear – and what he feels so guilty about only becomes somewhat clear as the film moves along). With nowhere to go, when he receives an offer from a kindly nun – Sister Claire (played by Imelda Staunton, giving you the first sign that you shouldn’t trust her) – he gladly takes it. Tomas will work as a handyman of sorts for Magda (Carla Juri) – who lives in a large, dilapidated, remote house as she cares for her dying mother (Anah Ruddin). It quickly becomes clear though that Mother isn’t just some sick old woman – she is possessed by some ancient evil – or may well be the ancient evil made flesh. Magda is trapped with her until Mother dies anyway, and Tomas is there to help. You sense immediately though that Tomas is uncomfortable – the way he looks at Magda brings up mixed feelings in both him and the audience.

Garai reveals the truth behind all of these characters – but does so slowly – perhaps too slowly for genre fans who just want to get to the bloody climax of the movie (rest assured genre fans, when Garai finally does go for broke in those final minutes, it is worth the wait). The film mixes different horror genres in its one film – it is a tale of possession of course, but it eventually makes it clear that it is also a feminist take on the rape/revenge film – that stands aside something like Coralie Fargeat’s underrated/underseen Revenge as an attempt by female filmmakers to take the genre back from its pure exploitation roots. Tomas is a complicated figure – he wants to “free” Magda from whatever curse is on her that forces her to stay alongside mother – as if doing so will free him of his sins. But, as the film makes clear, it may not be enough – you cannot simply make up for a bad deed with a good one. Tomas though is a more complicated figure than we normally see in this type of movie – and Secareanu’s performance is quite good at navigating the different aspects of him. The same is true for Juri’s Magda – and her performance, which really is something in the final act. Up until then, the structure and storytelling do somewhat limit her – as Garai doesn’t want to give the game away. An old pro like Staunton is also quite good as Sister Claire – making the film’s simplest main character into something interesting.

It really is the visuals though that make Amulet something to behold. Garai takes great care with the cinematography and sound design to create atmosphere – and the production design on the house is also quite special – without it, the film would likely fall apart. Garai is clearly a talented – and ambitious – filmmaker. Perhaps, too ambitious with this first film – the flashback structure and storytelling is a little confusing at times – but she more than makes up for it with the visuals, the performances and ideas. I cannot wait to see what she does next.