Unseen

Sam, a gas station clerk, receives a random call from Emily, a nearly blind woman who's running from her murderous ex in the woods. Using a phone, Sam becomes Emily's only chance for survival as she guides the terrified woman through a video call.

Director: Yoko Okumura
Distributed by: Paramount Home Entertainment

A Horror Movie Review by Hope Madden

Two young Asian women are separated by 1400 miles but connected by their invisible daily struggle against countless racist, misogynistic slights. And also, this phone call, placed blindly by Emily (Midori Francis, The Good Boys, Oceans 8) to Sam (Jolene Purdy, Orange Is the New Black).

Emily stepped on her glasses in her hasty escape from ex, Charlie (Michael Patrick Lane). Her hands are zip-tied, she can’t see, she’s in the middle of the Michigan woods, but she has her cell phone. If she can get anyone on the line, maybe they can be her eyes and guide her to safety.

To a degree, this is a gimmick exploited in Randall Okita’s 2021 See for Me, but director Yoko Okumura makes it work somewhat organically when Emily reaches Sam, a misused Tallahassee convenience store cashier who’d recently misdialed looking for a pizza. 

Sam doesn’t believe the call is real, then doesn’t think she could possibly be the best person to help, but eventually relents. What follows is often tense, frequently poignant, sometimes a bit forced, but ultimately charming and satisfying. Even in moments where the contrivance is pulled a little thin, Gator Galore employee Sam anchors the antics emotionally and logically. While you are eager for Emily to survive, it’s Sam you’re rooting for.

Mainly (and wisely), writers Salvatore Cardoni and Brian Rawlins’s script puts the point of view someplace audiences can understand – a gas station convenience store. This simplifies things because it’s a very common, almost comforting location for a horror story. And, although we may or may not have been in the woods of Michigan running frantically and blindly from a maniacal ex, we’ve all been to a gas station convenience store.

Likewise, Purdy’s performance feels real, regardless of the absurdity of her situation.  Here is where the film struggles slightly, though. What goes on inside Gator Galore is a broad, garish, Gators n Guns adventure that crosses over to comedy, albeit incredibly tense and horrifically frustrating comedy. These scenes work, developing a hateful and sadly recognizable tension that launches the film’s anxiety toward its truly satisfying conclusion. It just sometimes feels like whiplash against the far more traditional wooded survival horror going on at the other end of the line.

Back in Tallahassee, Missi Pyle is, per usual, the ideal candidate to play entitled trash who truly believes that her slightest whim is of so much more value than any other possible situation that murder would be justifiable. I mean, is it even murder when you’re being so inconvenienced by a convenience store employee?!

Unseen is an angry film. Okumura’s is an angry voice, but it finds comfort and salvation in community. The film takes aim at casual racism, gaslighting and toxic white privilege but never lets anger overshadow her central relationship.

Hope Madden is a writer and award-winning filmmaker living with her husband George and cat Velma in Columbus, Ohio. She writes what scares her, which worked out fine until she became a filmmaker and had to live what scared her for the duration of a shoot. Terrible decision. Her novella, Roost, was published in 2022 by Off Limits Press and her first feature film releases in late 2022.

Larry (Travis Coles) is getting married. His best buddies, Nico (Frankie Grande), Reggie (Troy Iwata), and Kevin (Noah J. Ricketts) spirit him away on a surprise bachelor weekend at a mansion that is reportedly haunted by the spirit of Sylvia (Veanne Cox) who killed her son in that very house 100 years before. However, Larry was supposed to be spending time with his fiancé’s (Michael Urie) brother, Harrison (Nicholas Logan) before he was “kidnapped” by his friends, and he ends up inviting the very straight and troubled Harrison out to the house the join the celebrations.

This doesn’t go down too well with the others, especially when a séance potentially leads to Harrison becoming possessed by the spirit of Sylvia. As the friends try to figure out what is going on and the truth about Sylvia slowly emerges, a spooky gay farce plays out in front of our eyes.


And, to be fair, that is as much fun as it sounds.

I rarely laugh out loud at comedies when I watch them alone, but Sylvia managed to illicit a couple of guffaws from me during it’s short, but perfect run-time. The characters are suitably larger than life, from the flamboyant, thoughtful Larry and the erotically charged Nico, to the straight-shooting, nerdy Reggie and the repressed and confused Kevin. Once you throw the PTSD suffering ex-army Harrison into the mix, the potential for confusion, conflict and unexpected sex is considerably raised.


The film is polished and the cast are all great, just having a ball being over the top and fun, it is likely only the very hard-hearted who won’t raise a smile at this bunch. Sylvia is listed as Comedy, Horror and Thriller on IMDB and, while it isn’t particularly extreme in any of those cases, there are definite elements of all three – just don’t expect to be terrified out of your skin, or struggling not to wet yourself from laughing, unless you’re getting on a bit and your bladder is getting weaker like mine.

74 minutes is certainly a short film, but Summoning Sylvia does a lot with its meagre run-time, and I wouldn’t have had a problem with another 20 minutes or so with this group – it did feel like it was over a little too soon.


Overall, Summoning Sylvia delivers a message about friendship and acceptance and, while it isn’t very subtle, it is well-done and the film has real heart. Change and growth comes to all the characters by the end, and not just in the obvious ways you might expect.
​
In Summoning Sylvia, Taylor and Wyse have done a great job directing and creating a tight, low-budget, indie romp that should leave a smile on your face. Definitely worth considering for a light, evening’s entertainment if you want something a little spooky but light-hearted and warm.

Consecration

After the suspicious death of her brother, a priest, Grace travels to the Mount Saviour Convent in Scotland to find out what really happened. Once there, she uncovers murder, sacrilege and a disturbing truth about her own past.
​
Release date: 10 February 2023 (USA)
Director: Christopher Smith
Distributed by: IFC Films
​
A Horror Movie Review by by Hope Madden

Consecration is another Catholic horror movie full of potentially vengeful nuns.
Yawn.

It stars Jena Malone and Danny Huston and was directed by Christopher Smith, whose Severance is one of the best horror comedies ever.

Go on.

Malone plays Grace, a woman called to Scotland to identify the body of her brother, a priest who killed himself after murdering another priest in front of a gaggle of nuns. But the Mother Superior (an effectively chilly Janet Suzman) tells the story a bit differently than handsome local detective Harris (Thoren Ferguson). She knows Grace’s brother was possessed by a demon and had the strength to end his life to protect the convent.

Grace is having none of it. What she is having are hallucinations and blackouts, which should probably concern her more than they seem to. But that’s just the beginning of Consecration’s problems.


Malone – a generally welcome sight in any film – is as unconvincing. Her amateur atheist sleuth is as believable as her Scottish accent. The gritty charm and sly intelligence she’s used to mischievous and mysterious effect in so many films evaporate in the face of this super serious if frequently lightheaded character.

Much of the ensemble fares better. Huston’s spot-on as the priest determined to find a solution to this convent problem. Meanwhile, Eilidh Fisher blends warmth and weirdness, creating the film’s sole memorably tragic figure.

But Smith’s script, co-written with longtime collaborator/first-time writer Laurie Cook, leaves too many gaps in logic for its tale to take hold. Most of these holes concern Grace, which is no doubt among the reasons Malone struggles to create a believable character.
​
The scenery is gorgeous and there is an interesting time/space twist that’s a bit of good fun. But it’s not quite enough to salvage a tired idea told with pretty images and little enthusiasm.

​
​
Hope Madden is a writer and award-winning filmmaker living with her husband George and cat Velma in Columbus, Ohio. She writes what scares her, which worked out fine until she became a filmmaker and had to live what scared her for the duration of a shoot. Terrible decision. Her novella, Roost, was published in 2022 by Off Limits Press and her first feature film releases in late 2022.

Blue Finch Film Releasing presents The Outwaters in cinemas 7 April


An excursion to the Mojave Desert turns creepy when a group of campers starts to experience unexplained sounds, vibrations, and unnatural animal behaviour. Then one night everything changes, sending the foursome on a mind-bending trip through terror.

Director: Robbie Banfitch

#TheOutwaters @BlueFinchFilms 

​

Mad Heidi (2022)
Written by Sandro Klopfstein, Johannes Hartmann, Gregory D. Widmer
Directed by Johannes Hartman and Sandro Klopfstein (co-director)


Swiss mountain girl Heidi is abducted by brutal government troops and must defend herself and fight a war against a cheese-fuelled machinery of hate.

Mad Heidi is cheesy.

Literally.

I am not sure you will see a cheesier film this year.

If you are looking for a tongue in cheek exploitation horror about a crazy Swiss leader planning on world domination through cheese trade agreements, then Mad Heidi is about as Gouda as it gets.

Yeah, I know, but I don’t give Edam.


Okay, right, now I’ve got that out of my system, where was I?

Ah yes, Heidi.

For anyone who grew up in the late 70s and early 80s, Heidi will likely be fondly remembered from the kids TV show Heidi that followed the titular young girl’s adventures in the Swiss Alps where she lived with her Grandpa. The show also explored her friendships with Peter the goatherd and disabled local girl, Clara.

Well, she’s back, only this time, she isn’t quite so sweet and innocent. Klara (Almar G. Sato) is very much able to walk and, quite frankly, Heidi (Alice Lucy) and Goat Peter’s (Kel Matsena) relationship is VERY different from what you might remember.

And this sets you up for what is a very loose retelling of the story of Heidi set against the backdrop of a cruel dictatorship and unhealthy obsession with cheese. Actually it isn’t even very loose, I guess the only real connections are the names and the Alps! And maybe cheese.

Heidi and Peter are lovers, only Goat Peter has a dangerous side-hustle in illegal cheese-dealing. When he is caught by the authoritarian regime, Heidi is taken prisoner by the Nazi-like state police, and so begins a rip-roaring road to redemption and revenge as the people of Switzerland rise up against their cheese-obsessed ruler.

This is cheesploitation cinema, steeped in the tropes and traditions of the genre; violence, gore, funky music, cheesy dialogue and tits. It is not subtle and, dare I say it, is probably fairly offensive in a few places (the singling out and execution of those who are lactose intolerant is not a subtle metaphor) but it never tries to pretend it is anything other than trash cinema out for shits and giggles. However, its humour is pointed in the right direction, and it doesn’t take cheap shots at sensitive subjects. Any film that starts with a demonstration about cheese, where people hold up banners proclaiming the cheese monopoly to be ‘udder madness’, is aiming itself squarely at a certain audience and you will know if that is you very early on.

Having said that, the production here is pretty good. There are a few dodgy effects shots, but they largely add to the charm of the movie, which wears its crowd-funded origins with pride and, let’s face it, none of this really matters when severed necks are spouting gallons of blood. For an exploitation flick, there wasn’t, perhaps, as much gore as some will hope for but what you get is suitably icky. Although, if I am honest, towards the end of the film, for me, it was scenes of people eating cheese long after they really wanted to be eating cheese, that end up being some of the more stomach churning!

It is clear that the team, as well as having fun making this movie, put a lot of love into it to. The sets, props and costumes are all solid and the acting, on the whole is great and suitably OTT. I’ve seen criticisms of the acting in a few other reviews, but you want scenery-chewing and melodrama in a film like this. If everyone played it straight, it wouldn’t work. Casper van Dien plays the crazy Swiss premier to superb B-Movie effect and Alice Lucy as Heidi is having a ball. I look forward to seeing her return for the sequel, teased at the end of the movie. This would also hopefully see the sadly underused Klara in a more prominent role.
Add in unusual applications of Toblerone, cheese zombies, and death by accordion, and you know you are up for a hell of a ride. By the time you find out where the milk for all this cheese is coming from, you may well have had enough, but there is no doubting Mad Heidi does what it sets out to do; make a crazy exploitation-style horror-comedy that doesn’t take itself at all seriously.

There is, of course, an underlying seriousness to the message here. State control and the power a government can wield and abuse over its people is very current, this is just an unexpected way of getting that message across.
​
Whether or not this is something you will enjoy, you will have to whey up the pros and cons yourself but, ultimately, Mad Heidi is a crazy, daft, and fun way to spend 90 minutes, it’s the Kill Bill of cheesploitation. Films like this are never going to worry the Oscars, but that is never the point. If you take films like this too seriously, you will never enjoy them. But, If you get a kick out of films like Iron Sky, Dead Snow, Black Sheep and Overlord, to name just the first few that came to mind, then I don’t think you will be too disappointed by this trip to the Swiss Alps.

It is clear that the team, as well as having fun making this movie, put a lot of love into it to. The sets, props and costumes are all solid and the acting, on the whole is great and suitably OTT. I’ve seen criticisms of the acting in a few other reviews, but you want scenery-chewing and melodrama in a film like this. If everyone played it straight, it wouldn’t work. Casper van Dien plays the crazy Swiss premier to superb B-Movie effect and Alice Lucy as Heidi is having a ball. I look forward to seeing her return for the sequel, teased at the end of the movie. This would also hopefully see the sadly underused Klara in a more prominent role.
Add in unusual applications of Toblerone, cheese zombies, and death by accordion, and you know you are up for a hell of a ride. By the time you find out where the milk for all this cheese is coming from, you may well have had enough, but there is no doubting Mad Heidi does what it sets out to do; make a crazy exploitation-style horror-comedy that doesn’t take itself at all seriously.

There is, of course, an underlying seriousness to the message here. State control and the power a government can wield and abuse over its people is very current, this is just an unexpected way of getting that message across.
​
Whether or not this is something you will enjoy, you will have to whey up the pros and cons yourself but, ultimately, Mad Heidi is a crazy, daft, and fun way to spend 90 minutes, it’s the Kill Bill of cheesploitation. Films like this are never going to worry the Oscars, but that is never the point. If you take films like this too seriously, you will never enjoy them. But, If you get a kick out of films like Iron Sky, Dead Snow, Black Sheep and Overlord, to name just the first few that came to mind, then I don’t think you will be too disappointed by this trip to the Swiss Alps.
​

Becoming a new mother is a joy. The sleepless nights, constant crying, bleeding heavily from your vagina for weeks, having a new human you’ve been entrusted to keep alive in your house.

Did I say joy? I meant horror show.

Writer/director Bess Wohl has turned new parenthood, particularly motherhood, into a tense, sometimes funny, horror movie with Baby Ruby.

New parents Jo and Spencer (Noémie Merlant and Kit Harington) have a lot to be thankful for when they bring new daughter Ruby home. Jo is a very successful blogger who is eager to prove her mettle as a new mom.

However, problems start right away. It’s unclear, to both Jo and the audience, if certain horrific events are real or dreams. Jo begins losing time. Ruby never stops crying.

There’s a certain amount of confusion and plenty of red herrings peppered through the film. Though it seems obvious what plagues Jo, the filmmakers want you off-balance. Is husband, Spencer, supportive – or is that smile vaguely sinister? Is someone whispering to Ruby through the baby monitor? Is Ruby angry with Jo?

These are the things that rattle Jo’s confidence. On top of her struggles with Ruby, all the other new moms make it look easy. Jo is introduced to several new moms at a local café. They’re all perfectly coifed in summer dresses, and their babies must sleep long enough for them to do their makeup. In comparison, Jo feels even more like a failure.

There’s a certain subtle humor to the film, even as it works to rachet up the tension.

Because of the desire to keep the audience guessing, there are a few moments when it feels like Wohl is trying too hard to scare you. Some of the horror works well, some segments are too heavy-handed. There is a dog and a dog-related low blow.

No offense to the parents of the babies playing Ruby, but they’re perfectly cast as they’re both adorable and a little creepy. Part of you wants to reach out and pick her up, while the other part is a bit put off by that weird little face.
​
The film nails several aspects of what makes being a new parent feel like a nightmare. It’s not surprising that many parents look back at those early days with hindsight and laugh. Otherwise, we might all feel like we’ve lived through a horror movie.

Rachel Willis is a freelance writer living and working in Columbus, Ohio.
​
She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Fairleigh Dickinson University. Rachel has written for both Screenrelish and MaddWolf and is currently working on her first novel. Aside from being and active writer, Rachel is an avid film watcher with a soft spot for horror movies. Rachel is also a member of the Central Ohio Film Critics Association.

Spoilers for 2022 movie The Batman.


So. I caught up with The Batman over the Christmas break.


I’d wanted to see it since I heard about Pattinson’s casting, and given that, made a point of avoiding the trailers, clips, and critical response. Via Twitter, I’d ascertained that they were going for a Zodiac vibe for The Riddler, Batman's principle antagonist for the film, and I’ll admit to a somewhat ambivalent response to the news. The pre-release semi-hot take had it that this was all of a piece with DC’s commitment to ‘grim and gritty uber alles’ to distinguish themselves from Marvel’s ‘actually fun’ aesthetic, and I probably rolled my eyes a bit in sympathy with this take.


Because, dig it; The Riddler’s always been one of the camper characters in the Batman Rogues Gallery. There’s quite a lot of things wrong with Schumacher's Batman Forever, but you can’t really claim with a straight face that the Carey Riddler wasn’t pretty true to form when it comes to his comic book equivalent. He was always the villain most suited to the 60’s TV Show incarnation of Batman, to the extent that all the other villains copied his M.O., for crying out loud. And I can see the fan argument; why (oh why) pick the campest villain in the canon and ‘grimdark’ him up? Bad enough that Joker’s lost any sense of the whimsy that made The Laughing Fish such an iconic story (though admittedly, the last movie to feature the character was a stone cold banger, as well as a cautionary tale when it comes to Judging A Movie By It’s Trailer).


As someone who genuinely thinks that the Lego Batman movie is the best Batman movie of all time, I’m not entirely unsympathetic to this either, to be clear; on the other hand, the last live movie outing for The Bat that went for balls out camp was Batman And Robin. So. You know.


Anyhow. I went in essentially blind, aside from the above, which is just my preferred way of doing things, and I had a really good time.


I guess I’ll start with Pattinson, because I think he does an excellent job. My usual line about Batman in movies is that you’re never really casting Batman, you’re casting Bruce Wayne, because The Bat is the costume, and, let’s face it, most of the stuff he’s gonna do that sells you on him being Batman in that costume is going to be done by a stuntman in any case. But Pattinson really challenges that read. I always found Bale’s Wayne a bit of a weak link in the Nolan movies, because I thought his performance as Wayne was unconvincing; he never looked like he was having fun as Wayne. And I know that was the point, but it was also a bum note, for me, because if you’re concealing the fact that you’re a vigilante by acting like a billionaire playboy, and you spend your entire time pretending to be drunk looking like you’ve been slapped and didn’t enjoy it, how exactly is that going to convince the world you are what you pretend to be? Bale should be convincing as Wayne, the script and story acts as though he is, but I’m never sold; and that’s a performance/directorial decision, obviously, just one that’s never sat quite right with me. A big part of the plot of that trilogy hinges on Bruce Wayne ostensibly wanting to put Batman out of business, and for me, a significant flaw with that is that he clearly doesn’t like being Bruce Wayne at all


Whereas in The Batman, it’s clear in both the writing and performance that Bruce Wayne barely exists; the world sees him as a recluse, and Pattinson makes no pretence at not being a haunted and deeply broken human. Even in the scenes where he’s taken the cowl off and he’s hanging with Alfred in the Batcave, the black eye makeup he wears under the mask casts a literal shadow over his face, emphasising (as the Joker says in Grant Morrison’s  Arkham Asylum) that the mask is his real face. In this movie, it’s crystal clear that Wayne is the mask, and one that honestly barely fits in any meaningful way. It’s an important choice, because it frees the movie from the obsessions with duality that infuse so many Bat-narratives (even, to a degree, my beloved Lego Batman Movie).


What do we get in place of that? We get a pretty straight-up noir crime thriller. I’m not sure Gotham has ever looked as grim or as hopeless as in this film (except, maybe, in Joker); a gloomy, perpetually rain-soaked combination of the worst neighbourhoods of New York and Chicago smashed together, and left to smoulder like the smoky fires the city's homeless huddle around. As with both of those cities at different moments in history, this is a city of rampant, endemic corruption; the mob runs everything and everyone. This creates an interesting environment for Pattinson's Bat; he’s been under the cowl for two years by this point, so his reputation and budding relationship with Lt. Jim Gordon is there (yes, in this movie we’re mercifully spared both the on-camera murder of Ma and Pa Wayne and the unveiling of the Bat-signal). At the same time, he’s still hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned by a city that ‘likes being dirty’.


This created what were, for me, as a long time Batfan, a lot of really cool moments. There’s the wary and grudging deference the cops show him as he strides about the crime scenes, finding clues The Riddler has left on the bodies (and, yes, absolutely, the influence of Se7en is felt clearly in these moments, in both the grim elaboration of the murders and the relentlessly grungy lighting), and the inevitable row over chain of command between Gordon and other officers; it’s clear The Bat is hated by a large section of the force, both for the fact of his vigilantism, and, in some cases almost certainly their own corruption, and it’s often not clear which element is motivating the hostility in any given moment. Or take the scene where Batman roughs up Penguin (here redrawn as ‘Oz’, a scarred mob enforcer, played by an unrecognisable Colin Farrell). It crackles with an energy that’s surprising given it’s stock nature, but that energy comes from all the elements we’ve talked about; the fact that The Bat is a quantity both known and unknown, the fact that Penguin has a shrewd idea the Bat isn't likely to kill hum… but not quite a certainty, and Pattinson’s Bat awareness of his own precariarity - he simply cannot take all of them down, all at once, and he knows it. He has to pick which battles to fight and which to let go. For all the purported ‘gritty realism’ of the Nolan movies (and, again, I do love them, flaws and all), the model of organised crime presented in those movies is simplistic almost unto abstraction; not so here, where I got a sense of a city not just under siege but in a state of perpetual low level warfare between various factions.


Add in a version of Catwoman that finally didn’t make my wife want to throw something at the screen, and we’re really cooking with gas here, in terms of making a Batman movie that’s a) good and b) hasn’t been done a million times.


And on that, we should get to Paul Dano’s Riddler.


So, yeah, sure, as mentioned above, there's an element of Zodiac in the costume ,and Se7en in his MO, and if you think originality should consist of a little more than grafting on characteristics that haven’t been attached to a character before, I’m not going to argue. And, again, I respect those who bemoan the ‘grimdarking’ of one of the most straightforwardly camp villains in the BatCanon. Bigger BatHeads will be able to offer something definite on this, but my memory of Riddler is he’s rarely if ever been homicidal in his crimes, except for trying to kill The Bat. So, yeah, having him as a serial killer is a departure, and not necessarily a welcome one, and if you don’t dig it, I dig it.


But I do dig it.


Two main reasons. The first is Paul Dano. I think he’s an actor capable of delivering creepy intensity at a level few can manage, and none that come to mind exceed. I’ve loved him ever since There Will Be Blood; kid may never get the romantic lead, but whenever he’s on camera, the odds of something genuinely stunning happening are pretty high. And he gets right inside this psychotic, hyper intelligent loner; you can feel the contours of his pathology, and I got a genuine sense of unease at not knowing what he was planning, even as the film showed us more and more of what he was capable of. And for me, that’s a sales job, and for it to work, you have to believe the guy playing Ridler, and Paul Dano made me believe.


But the second is more complicated and gets heavily into spoilers. Because this Riddler isn’t the camp, amoral trickster of the comics, but he’s not the faux-religious lunatic of Se7en, either.


He’s actually a vigilante, closer to The Unabomber than any of the other comparison points.


And it sneaks up on you - or, at least, it snuck up on me. Yes, sure, his victims are corrupt people in power, but, you know, it’s Gotham, swing a cat, etc. And the movie throws a clever curveball around the halfway mark by having him target Bruce Wayne (admittedly leading to my least favourite subplot where Alfred almost gets blown up, because, erm, chaps, we have rather done that one before once or twice now). So the moment when Riddler confesses to Batman was a genuine thrill for me, as he articulates what I really should have realised; that Riddler is trying to clean up the town, and sees The Bat as his willing accomplice.


And I’ll need to do a rewatch to see if it actually holds up in terms of what we see on camera, but wow, it was a thrilling moment, in the moment. More, it found a brilliant way to hold up a mirror to Batman’s own pathology; vigilante to vigilante, ‘we’re trying to clean this town up together!’. And the moment when Riddler realises The Bat hadn’t been playing along… his crushing disappointment is palpable, and his fury at entirely misreading the intellect and motivation of his opposite number could melt steel.


(Brief aside here, but; it’s so cool how this version of The Bat is a legit detective, and also completely out of his intellectual depth next to The Riddler. So fucking cool)


And it’s great because it drives at my favourite element of The Bat’s pathology, the thing that I think makes him a far more interesting character than, say, The Punisher (who I also love for different reasons, to be clear, but); because a murder set Batman down the path of vigilantism, he will not kill. Not for moral reasons, but because he actually can’t, no matter what; he can never risk inflicting the trauma that made him upon anyone else, no matter how deserving his opponent might be. It's one of those decisions that’s brilliant both in terms of character psychology and story terms, because it creates an environment where no matter how monstrous the villain, The Bat will bring them in alive, again and again. Because he has to. Because he has no choice.


And, suddenly, The Riddler - the fucking Riddler, people - becomes The Bat’s mirror darkly, asking with a sweaty grin of rage ‘why not just kill them?’. Even better, he thinks they have a shared goal, believes The Bat is his accomplice; and the look of mounting horror on Pattinson’s face, eyes widening behind the mask as he realises what’s really been going on this whole time, what he’s helped enable, is one of the most dramatically thrilling and satisfying moments I’ve ever experienced watching a Batman movie.


And it really created some problems for me in the final act.


Because at this point, I gotta be honest, I’m finding The Riddler pretty sympathetic. Gotham is hopelessly corrupt, the people he’s been murdering are evil, if the word has any meaning. Sure, he targeted Bruce Wayne, but even there, he had his reasons (we’ve not gotten into the hand grenade bit of background lore that has Martha, Bruce’s mom, part of the Arkham family, and I don’t know if that’s an idea that came in sometime after I stopped being a regulat BatReader, but holy fucking shit what a dynamite idea). It turns out that the regeneration fund Wayne’s dad set up might not have been squeaky clean; and, in a nice echo of how this Bat has to negotiate the crime families, it looks like Wayne senior got too close to one of those families, with murderous results. It’s fascinating to me how recent rounds of BatFiction have had a more and more fraught and anxious tone around Wayne’s obscene wealth (gee, it’s almost as though, in real life, billionaires all turn out to be cartoon comic book villains, or something). Obviously, ground zero for this was 2019’s Joker, which, as I apparently can’t stop discussing at considerable length, did, amongst many other astonishing things, a real number on the Wayne founding mythology in general and Pa Thomas in particular; setting him up almost as a Liberal tinged Trump figure (and yes, I’m fully aware there here, as in so many other places, Joker was working as a Rorschach for the viewer’s own prejudices, don’t @ me unless it’s with a serious offer to write a book). But it’s fascinating to see that anxiety playing out in a movie where The Batman is ostensibly the hero, and it gave proceedings just the vaguest whiff of nihilism that I found absolutely exhilarating.
​
So the movie does what the movies always do, at this point; they send Riddler totally over the deep end into BatShit (sure, why not, pun intended) terrorist/Jim Jones mode, complete with bombs taking out the sea wall, and a gang of armed to the teeth masked online loners who are going to assassinate the Mayor-elect and also massacre a bunch of people, and I know, I know, the movie’s gotta have a big setpiece finale and The Riddler’s gotta be The Bad Guy and The Bat has to win, but…


Well, let’s just say, while I absolutely didn’t hate the end at all (and certainly didn’t feel the movie outstayed its welcome, despite the 3 hour run time), it certainly felt like a vaguely frustrating return to mean after what had, to that point, been a very different BatCinematic experience.


I’m really glad this team have a trilogy. I want more of this Gotham, I want their take on Joker, and I definitely want lots more Battinson.


But I think they’re really going to have to go some to beat the creeping horror of the scene in Arkham when the Bat looks through the glass at the Riddler and sees his own reflection.


That was, as I believe the kids still say, The Good Shit.


More please.


KP
16/1/23

Calvaire (The Ordeal)

Marc Stevens is a jobbing cabaret singer working in old people's homes and community centres. On his way to the next gig, his car breaks down in a run-down village.

Director: Fabrice Du Welz
Film series: Ardennes trilogy
​
A Horror Movie Review by Hope Madden

One of the most criminally underseen horror treasures of the 2000s has been restored and re-released, and you really should take advantage.

A paranoid fantasy about the link between progress and emasculation, Calvaire sees a timid singer stuck in the wilds of Belgium after his van breaks down.

Writer/director Fabrice Du Welz’s script scares up the darkest imaginable humor. If David Lynch had directed Deliverance French, the concoction might have resembled Calvaire. As sweet, shy singer Marc (a pitch-perfect Laurent Lucas) awaits aid, he begins to recognize the hell he’s stumbled into. Unfortunately for Marc, salvation’s even worse.

The whole film boasts an uneasy, “What next?” quality. It also provides a European image of a terror that’s plagued American filmmakers for generations: the more we embrace progress, the further we get from that primal hunter/gatherer who knew how to survive.

Du Welz animates more ably than most our collective revulsion over the idea that we’ve evolved into something incapable of unaided survival –the weaker species, so to speak. Certainly, John Boorman’s Deliverance (the Uncle Daddy of all backwoods survival pics) understood the fear of emasculation that fuels this particular dread, but Du Welz picks that scab more effectively than any filmmaker since.
​
His film is a profoundly uncomfortable, deeply disturbing, unsettlingly humorous freakshow that must be seen to be believed.

​
Hope Madden is a writer and award-winning filmmaker living with her husband George and cat Velma in Columbus, Ohio. She writes what scares her, which worked out fine until she became a filmmaker and had to live what scared her for the duration of a shoot. Terrible decision. Her novella, Roost, was published in 2022 by Off Limits Press and her first feature film releases in late 2022.

Nocebo

A fashion designer suffers from a mysterious illness that confounds her doctors and frustrates her husband. Help arrives in the form of a Filipino nanny who uses traditional folk healing to reveal a horrifying truth.

Initial release: 14 October 2022
Director: Lorcan Finnegan
Producers: Bianca Balbuena, Brunella Cocchiglia, Emily Leo
Distributed by: TBA Studios, Vertigo Films

A Horror Movie Review by Hope Madden

There’s a lot to recommend in Lorcan Finnegan’s new film, Nocebo. It depicts the horror of corporate and personal greed, which is not only currently popular but horrifyingly timeless.

It boasts four admirable performances. Eva Green is Christine. Christine designs clothing for children, and right as she’s launching a new line, she gets some kind of terrible news. Simultaneously, she runs afoul of something seriously foul and finds herself, some months later, debilitated by a mysterious illness.

Her husband Felix (Mark Strong, always welcome) and daughter Bobs (Billie Gadsdon, terrific) are surprised to come home and find Diana (Chai Fonacier) has been hired as live-in help. Honestly, Christine is surprised, too, but she just can’t trust her memory anymore.

It’s a solid setup. Fonacier and Finnegan, whose Without Name (2016) offered excellent and underseen “into the woods” horror, keep you guessing as to Diana’s motives. Fonacier grounds her character, finding a balance between a number of rote horror options, which invites constant curiosity.

Still, without giving away any major plot points, it’s the character of Diana that makes the film so problematic. Writer Garret Shanley, who collaborated with Finnegan on both Without Name and the 2019 sci-fi horror Vivarium, leans into stereotypes and dated tropes to tell his tale.

That’s unfortunate because it’s a big problem for the film.

Finnegan does what he can by investing in both Christine and Diana’s points of view, which also keeps viewers off balance in terms of the likely outcome of the story. Strong injects the proceedings with a genuinely sympathetic perspective in a role that rarely benefits from such a thing. And Gadsdon is more than just adorable, although adorable she is.
​
But Nocebo doesn’t pack the punch it intends to, the point-of-view sleight of hand limiting the impact. It’s not the body horror promised by the catalyst, either. Instead, it’s a muddled if well-performed tale that leans heavily on an idea that needs to die.

​
Hope Madden is a writer and award-winning filmmaker living with her husband George and cat Velma in Columbus, Ohio. She writes what scares her, which worked out fine until she became a filmmaker and had to live what scared her for the duration of a shoot. Terrible decision. Her novella, Roost, was published in 2022 by Off Limits Press and her first feature film releases in late 2022.