Last Movie Watched.... The Xenforo Edition

Whistle (2025)
Dir. Corin Hardy



We get a cold open at a HS basketball game. The star player on the home team is distracted by a shadowy figure in the stands. After the game concludes, ending on him hitting the game winner, he runs to the locker room, where the shadowy figure re-emerges, until the young man in question destroys an object stashed in his locker. Thinking he has eluded whatever evil was coming for him, he experiences spontaneous combustion in the showers minutes later...
We fast-forward a semester. Chrys Willet is newly arrived at the same high school, having transferred from Chicago after a family tragedy. She is now living with her cousin and attending school alongside him, though the events back home have clearly left her with trauma. On her first day there, she discovers a strange item in her locker, one which the audience will recognize as the same one the basketball player destroyed. A teacher explains that the artifact seems Mayan in origin and the markings on it speak of 'summoning death'. Later that day, Chrys, her cousin Rel, Grace their host, Grace's boyfriend Dean and Ellie, a girl Chrys is already attracted to, gather after detention at Grace's place. There after some drinks, they start playing around with the skull shaped whistle. When Grace blows on it, nothing happens, other than a shrill sound cutting through the bone. Then in subsequent days, very strange things start happening to the group...

For whatever reason we have gotten quite a few examples of cursed object style horror in the last half decade. Unfortunately, of the ones I have seen, I would say only Talk To Me was a great little horror flick. The rest have been middling at best, this definitely falls into that category as well. Dafne Keen's lead performance is weird, she is meant to play someone who is slightly aloof but she actually is conveying more of a deep disinterest. Co-lead Sophie Nélisse, of Yellowjackets fame, is somewhat better. This borrows some ideas from both the Final Destination franchise and the horror classic It Follows, without ever being remotely as good. Michelle Fairley, of Game of Thrones fame, has a two-scene cameo mostly meant to information dump on the main characters.

 

The Hidden (1987)
Dir. Jack Sholder



Jack DeVries, until a few weeks ago a very law-abiding citizen, kills several guards whilst robbing a Los Angeles Wells Fargo branch. It is just the culmination of a crime spree that has left countless people dead, many more wounded. A high speed pursuit ends in a roadblock, after which a badly wounded DeVries is transported to the hospital. Detective in charge Tom Beck thinks he can finally close the case. Only as DeVries is near death, he awakens, revealing he is not human after all, a parasitic lifeform jumps from his body to the comatose patient next to him. F.B.I. agent Lloyd Gallagher shows up in Los Angeles, supposedly having tracked DeVries from a prior crime spree in Seattle. Knowing the true nature of DeVries, he also knows the murders will not stop, thus concocting a story about Jonathan Miller, the coma patient who walked out of the hospital, actually being one of the many aliases used by DeVries long-time criminal partner. Beck knows the story reeks, but once Miller starts claiming his first casualties, he has no choice but to chase him, with Gallagher as his new partner.

Actually never seen this sci-fi action-horror flick before. Surprisingly fun. Featuring a very young Kyle MacLachlan, just a year removed from Blue Velvet and Michael Nouri as Beck. One can also recognize Babylon 5's Claudia Christian as an unfortunate stripper, William Boyett as the alien's second guise, Miller, and a few blink-and-you'll-miss-em extra appearances from the likes of Danny Trejo and Branscombe Richmond. Boyett especially is good in conveying the cold merciless nature of the parasite whilst controlling a human. Alien Invasion/body snatching horror is hardly new of course, it was a staple in 1950s B-movies long before even Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the original 1956 feature) was released. This specific version of it actually reminded me most of another 1980s release: the mini-series 'Something is Out There'. The mini-series, not the short-lived follow-up regular series that was canceled after just six episodes (and which I never saw). Really liked the grainy security footage opening on this film, nice ominous film-making. And decent car chase to follow it up with. Fun movie fact, the location of this bank robbery scene is the exact same spot used for the Far East Bank heist in Heat, nine years later.

 

To Live and Die in LA.

Year: 1985

Platform: Criterion

Rating: 8/10

Summary: US Secret Service works to catch a counterfeiter.

I liked this, Friedkin does chase sequences quite well. Story took a minute to get going but the action scenes made it worth it. Also have to say this is very 80s in terms of clothes, aesthetics, and the soundtrack. It's good though.

It is also weird seeing a young Willem Dafoe. But he was great.

 

I actually believe this isn't on the official Wang Chung soundtrack of the film, but it is in the film.

 

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Year: 1978

Platform: Tubi

Rating: 8/10

Summary: A woman and her colleague start realizing that their friends aren't what they seem.

I don't know what it is about 1970s movies, but the good ones have a way of drawing you in. Even some of their TV shows like Columbo. This made me feel paranoid as the movie progressed. Although the music kind of ruined the atmosphere in certain scenes. That's my gripe though.

Also well done on being terrifying.

 

Definitely in the film. I learned of that song through Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. It helped that the founders of Rockstar were A&R guys, who knew good music when they heard it. And that game was how I learned of Kate Bush. The kids got Stranger Things, we had GTA.

 

Surviving the Hunt (2018)

Monica and Kelly have finished their tour in Afghanistan and are on leave to visit their respective families. But their car breaks down in some town in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately a few people at the local bar offer to put them up for the night and help them get to a bigger town the next day. Breakfast the next morning seems normal until the good samaritans serve a bullet to Kelly's chest. They like doing that to rile up their hunting quarry. They give Monica a compass and a 15 minute head start in the property's vast wooded area, hoping a Army combat veteran makes for more entertainment than the last guy.

It's slowly dawning on me that there are an infinite number of 2017 and later Most Dangerous Game movies, so it makes sense that someone tried it with an all-Black cast. But any entertainment coming from this ultra-low budget travesty is from laughing at it, not from anything purposeful. The story is unbelievable and horribly paced, the cast was mostly miss-cast, and the director doesn't know what hunting is. They clearly had one camera and lacked the time and budget to move it much, and whatever they were using for a microphone wasn't working. I'm thinking the 8.2 rating on IMDB means the friends and family raved and no one else saw it.

Good thing my scholarly study of The Most Dangerous Game isn't about entertainment.

 

We watched the first episode last night, thinking it was a comedy. And while there are funny moments aplenty, the weirdness is the dominant feature. And some good work generating creepy vibes from more-or-less innocuous moments.

 

The Dunk and Egg short story The Tourney takes place in 209 AC. The first book in the aSoIaF series, A Game of Thrones, takes place in 298 AC. So 89 years later. It does mean that some of the older characters in the main series of books by GRRM meet and interact with some of the Dunk and Egg characters in their youths. Like Tywin Lannister, Barristan Selmy, ...

 

Whale Rider ~ N. Caro (New Zealand - Oceania)

Pai's mother and twin brother die during childbirth. She is raised by her grandparents, though her grandfather, the Maori chief was seeking a male heir that her father won't fulfill. A nice film about celebrating culture and challenging it to adapt to a new era. It looks like Keisha Castle-Hughes was able to keep working as an actor despite the Academy Award nom at 13 seeming like one of those curses that might end child acting career.

 

War Machine (2026)
Dir. Patrick Hughes



We meet two brothers serving in Kandahar, Afghanistan, right before disaster strikes for the both of them. In the aftermath, the traumatized older brother tries out for the Rangers, even though he is brushing up against the upper age limit. He hopes to realize a dream he once shared with his brother that way, even though within the selection process he is one of the few candidates who does not bond with is peers and instead keeps his distance. Whilst the leadership has its doubts about candidate 81, his designation within RASP, he excels at many of the physical and tactical tests, whilst standing out for being the ultimate loner among the pretenders. He makes it all the way to the final test: the so called death march. Against his will he is made squad commander for this final training mission. Only when the group reaches its target - a training scenario in which they have to destroy a downed airplane before it can fall into enemy hands - the find something altogether different and the remainder of their death march turns into a true struggle for survival.

This was called 'Predator for the drone/robotics generation' in some corners and it's clear that's what it wants to be. Unfortunately it lacks most of what makes the McTiernan/Arnie classic so good. For one thing, the ever dwindling number of wannabe Rangers here are played by rather nameless and faceless actors, with characters that don't even have names but numbers assigned to them. Apart from Alan Ritchson, there is also no one who leaves any sort of impression. Compare that to Predator, which apart from Arnie had the likes of Carl Weathers, Jesse Ventura, Bill Duke, Sonny Landham, Shane Black... almost too much aura. Secondly, whilst the McTiernan flick sweated machismo, it was ultimately about the limits of that kind of thinking, whereas there is no such deconstruction ongoing in this vintage. I found even the robotic design lacking. They essentially stole the ED-209 look from Robocop, only made it much bigger and slightly more futuristic and alien looking. The Ranger training section didn't really work for me, there was a stretch of around thirty minutes in the middle where it got a little momentum, but it then fizzles out completely with the post-climax section. Makes Predator look like a pensive deconstruction of the war movie genre by comparison.

 

The Strangers: Chapter 3 (2026)
Dir. Renny Harlin



After the events of the second chapter, Maya is still stuck in the town of Venus, even though it briefly had looked like she had gotten the upper hand on the masked trio of killers on her trail. She is now certain that local law enforcement in the form of the Sheriff can not be trusted, a fact that is soon confirmed. There might be help on the way, as Maya's sister Debbie and brother in law Howard are on the way to Venus to track her down. In between the present day action, there are flashbacks to the earliest murderous activities of the trio of Scarecrow, Dollface and Pinup.

Only a desire to complete the trilogy brought me back, since I didn't think the second entry was particularly good and the first hadn't exactly been a masterpiece either. Slightly better than Chapter 2, mostly because it gives lead Madelaine Petsch slightly more to do than just run away from masked killers. By contrast, the flashback scenes of the young Scarecrow and Dollface are clearly less interesting than the writers and director think they are. I believe this entire prequel trilogy sort or proves the point that explaining the origins/background behind a horror mythology or characters diminishes rather than elevates the material. Not knowing where "Is Tamara there?" originated from was far more scary than the story origins for the phrase (revealed in chapter 2).

 

I Am Not a Witch ~ R. Nyoni (Zambia - Africa)

A orphaned girl is accused of being a witch by town residents in very Monty Pythonesque fashion. A gov't official comes to take her to a witch colony of sort where women are tied to spools of ribbon and forced into manual labor. A bleak satire that presents the ribbons as a metaphor in an otherwise modern setting highlighting the exploitation of women and particularly this child. It's clever storytelling by Nyoni and the direction was impressive as well. Maggie Mulubwa is quite good as Shula, the young girl.

 

Point Break ~ K. Bigelow (US - North America)

Johnny Utah (more or less dumb than Duncan Idaho?) is a new FBI agent in LA working bank robberies with a lead that the most efficient group of robbers may be surfers. So Johnny learns to surf (in a day) and tries to infiltrate the group. I was kind of hoping this would be some cult gem I hadn't seen, but I haven't hated a movie this much in a long time. The story and script are laughably bad and everyone's line deliveries are terrible. There's no framework for me to suspend my disbelief from because every plot point is incredibly stupid.

 

I think it ends well and people then forget about everything else.

Don't see the remake because everything you hate about the original is magnified 10fold in it.

 

Blood Star (2024)

This is all a bad mistake. That's what her sister kept telling her on the phone. Rhett was everything Bobbi hated about her father. He hit her for crying out loud. But here she was, traveling the long lonely highway through New Mexico back to him. Or would be, if she hadn't been stopped by Sheriff Bilstein for speeding. He seems professional enough, but takes an interest in her augmentative demeanor. He tells her to go back to a just-passed gas station and get money from the ATM to pay the fine, and he would hold her phone until she does so. Which he puts into a box containing dozens of phones, most with pink protectors. This is all a bad, bad mistake

Kinda thought this would be a Most Dangerous Game film from the description, but the chase was so pre-planned - almost a ritual by the sheriff - that I don't think this counts. The cat-playing-with-a-mouse quality is a strength in that it gives the vile sheriff some mysterious and bizarre qualities, but it more is a weakness as the protagonist had so little agency. She was basically given a single chance to make a difference, and she did make the most of it in a pretty cool scene, but she spent way too much of the movie just crying. I felt bad about the system she was in, but that meant I was detached and not empathizing with her.

 

You didn’t like the drop-kick-cat during the backyard chase scene?

This movie is a hate watch. Perfect for the MST3K treatment.

 

Predator (1987)

Dutch isn't quite sure why his team was called into a Central American outpost, but seeing Dillon puts him at ease. Dillon knows their reputation as rescue crew, whose prowess is governed by an ethical code. A friendly cabinet minister is being held in a rebel camp across the border. Only when they get there and take care of the camp, they find out Dillon was playing them. This is a big deal... until a third party joins their little escapade, one that makes all the betrayals and politics moot. Because he's not here for any of that. He's only here for the most dangerous game of all.

This is well regarded as a classic of action sci-fi survival horror, but on watching it, its part in the Most Dangerous Game genre is blatant and obvious. Maybe the title predisposes us to treat the alien as a force of nature rather than a being with motive, but it's right there in Arnold's dialogue multiple times, and in the actions (the taking of trophies and the traps are right out of the 1932 original). And that motive makes it scarier - it's pretty common to see man's inhumanity to man, but here we see an outsider's perspective, and it judges the totality of our species as nothing more than fodder for sport, picking apart the best we have to offer.

This is a better movie than I remember. I love the repeated fast and slow pacing, first a blur of action and then allowing us to recognize the depth of the situation in turn. I like how there's a really good story before it becomes a different story. And the thing about these bad-ass operators that are as a skilled and unstoppable as fiction can make them is - they are afraid. Really afraid. Kind of subversive for a macho guys-with-guns movie.

 

Deadly Games (1982)
Dir. Scott Mansfield



In a cold open, a young woman arrives home, gets a call from an apparent peeping tom, and when she finally convinced herself she is indeed safe, she is confronted by a masked home invader, who ends up killing her. The victim Linda's sister Clarrisa "Keegan", returns to her home town upon hearing about the tragic death. At the scene of the crime, her sister's house, she meets the detective in charge of the investigation, Roger Lane, and feels immediately attracted to him. An attraction Lane seems to share, in spite of his married status. As Clarrisa reconnects with some of the acquaintances and friends from her high school years, the masked killer makes more victims, all within Linda's broad social circle, suggesting that all of the victims might have known their murderer.

The name of the film might fool you into thinking I have briefly joined @spejic 's The Most Dangerous Game project, this however is a fairly straight-forward low-budget, early 1980s slasher, of which countless were made. The opening scene had me fooled I was going to see a decent entry in the genre, between the early split diopter shot (there is another nice one towards the end of the film) and the nice, 1980s style high-key stylized lighting of the opening sequence. Unfortunately it's far from a gran cru. The most jarring thing is the tone - wild tonal shifts aren't uncommon in this type of slasher - to the point where the silliness of the dialogue clashes heavily with how seriously the murder scenes are treated. The identity of the killer is also pretty clear from very early on in the film. Most recognizable faces here are June Lockhart (of Lost In Space and Lassie fame) in a very short appearance as Keegan's mom, NFL player turned actor Dick Butkus in a small supporting role, Colleen Camp (who apart from a host of exploitation flicks in the 1970s will be most well-remembered as Yvette the maid in Clue) as one of the victims. Wouldn't call myself a completionist for this era and sub-genre, though I have seen a lot of them. Not an entry that left a very great impression, unfortunately.

 

I had to look up two things from one sentence.

I would be a terrible director.