Ankle Biters
Four adorable little girls plot to murder a hockey player after they mistake an act of lovemaking as an attack on their mom.

Director
Bennet De Brabandere
Writers
Bennet De Brabandere(screenplay)Zion Forrest Lee(story by)
Stars
Colin MochrieHeidi von PalleskeMatia Jackett​
​A film review by Sam Kurd 

Ankle Biters is a Canadian horror-comedy from writer-director Bennet De Brabandere, story by Zion Forrest Lee.


Sean Chase (Zion Forrest Lee) is an ex-hockey star who’s planning to propose to his girlfriend Laura (Marianthi Evans). There’s just one problem-- well, four problems: Laura’s daughters Lily, Rosalee, Dahlia and Violet (Lily, Rosalee, Dahlia and Violet Reid). As much as Sean feels he’s ready to take on the responsibilities of a step-dad, he’s severely underestimated how much these girls dislike him, and when they mistake the couple’s rough kinky sex for Sean abusing their mother, they start to plot and scheme and plan how to get rid of him.


Will Sean survive their increasingly dangerous shenanigans? Well, the film literally opens with his ashes being presented to his parents before skipping back in time, so I guess asking the question’s a bit pointless.


I just don’t understand that choice at all. There was no need to open with him already dead; it sucks all the tension right out of the story. It highlights the biggest problem the film has: its tone. It’s not that it’s tonally inconsistent; for most of the film the tone is pretty steady. Unfortunately, that tone is ‘flat’.


It’s not funny enough for a dark comedy, not tense enough for a thriller, not scary enough for a horror, not engaging enough for a drama. Instead it just kind of sits there. There’s the occasional very gruesome moment, but they’re limited to a fun eye-gouging right in the opening minutes after the funeral and the murderous climax, with so few similar moments in between that these bits just feel jarring. And the climax itself appears to be aiming for wackiness, which is completely at odds with the rest of the film. It just doesn’t work.

​Bloodthirsty 

​Grey is an indie singer who is having visions that she is a wolf. When she gets an invitation to work with notorious music producer Vaughn Daniels at his remote studio in the woods she begins to find out who she really is.

Director: Amelia Moses
Writers: Wendy Hill-Tout and Lowell
Starring: Lauren Beatty, Greg Bryk, Katharine King So, Michael Ironside

Bloodhound Pix is made up of: Craig Draheim, Josh Lee, and Kyle Hintz
​

In the near future, a group of disparate individuals contemplates the meaning of life as deadly asteroids hurtle toward Earth.

Initial release: 22 October 2021
Director: Agata Alexander
Cinematography: Jakub Kijowski
Music composed by: Gregory Tripi
Screenplay: Agata Alexander, Jason Kaye
Producers: Stanislaw Dziedzic, Cybill Lui Eppich, Cybill Lui
Cast: Alex Pettyfer as Liam
Alice Eve as Claire
Annabelle Wallis as Nina
Benedict Samuel as Vincent
Charlotte Le Bon as Charlotte
Thomas Jane as David
Patrick Schwarzenegger as Ben
Rupert Everett as Charlie

​Director Agata Alexander developed WARNING as a result of her own existential crisis, waking up repeatedly at 4am wondering how everything was going to end. Worried that no-one else was panicking in the same way, she questioned what they had figured out about their lives and their existence that allowed them to be so calm? WARNING is the culmination of those late night/early morning ponderings on the meaning of life, what it is to be human, to love and, at the very end of it all, does any of it even matter?

WARNING opens with Thomas Jane’s astronaut/repair man, David, cast adrift in space after an accident untethers him from the satellite he is fixing. Drifting alone in space, staring down at Earth, he too contemplates his existence and the meaning of it all. I was immediately drawn into this opening with shades of Gravity (2013), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Love (2011), (three great films) and I was ready for another mind-boggling and confusing meditation on what it means to be human and alive.

But I didn’t quite get that.

(Just for the record, I didn’t find Gravity mind-boggling and confusing!)

As the film leaves David drifting, we are introduced to a number of different characters back down on earth, all struggling with their own existence. They face questions about relationships, their identities, love and life, all against the backdrop of news reports on Jane’s astronaut, strange storms, and an approaching asteroid.
​
Charlie is a robot programmed to help and care for people, but he is ageing and outdated. Brian has responsibility for Charlie and other robots like him and is determined to find a new home for the very much alive and almost sentient Charlie. When Charlie is rejected by yet another family, Brian and Charlie’s relationship is tested as difficult decisions need to be made and Brian is forced to play God.

​Claire is a neurotic young woman whose life revolves around the omnipresent GOD device (think Alexa with serious control issues) which records sins and hears your prayers. When the device crashes and is replaced by the new and improved GOD 2.0 she starts to question her reliance on the all-seeing device and takes drastic action to remove its insidious influence on her life.

​Ben and Anna have what appears to be the perfect relationship, but Anna is plagued by glimpses and visions of a mysterious, hooded stalker. Their relationship breaks down when Anna discovers her stalker was actually Ben who has been using sinister technology (think a VR Facebook that lets you stalk people in memories – you know, what they’ve just announced they are developing this week) to follow and spy on her. Ben can’t handle the break-up and his life is in ruins without Anna.

​Liam takes his new girlfriend, Nina home to meet his family who also happen to be immortal. Nina is not, and the class difference plays out over dinner before Liam’s mother takes drastic action to stop her son ruining his life with a mortal girl.

​Magda needs money to escape her trailer park life and alcoholic mother. For a big pay out, she allows middle-aged Pavel to inhabit her body using a technology known as “Second Skin” so he can experience life as a young girl. Things don’t go according to plan and the naïve Pavel soon discovers what life can be like for women, with very unpleasant consequences.

​In between chapters, we return to David floating in space, slowly losing his mind and coming to terms with his fate. A late image of David staring down at the Earth hints at the final images of 2001, as Dave (I see what they did there) Bowman, now the Star Child, surveys his dominion.


WARNING is full of great ideas that explore the film’s themes and, as another review I read suggests, are worthy of Black Mirror episodes, exploring people’s reliance on social media, the potential impacts of near future technology and the break-down of community/society. It is, very clearly, a warning.

The film is also nicely shot, looks good and has some great performances from a decent cast. Thomas Jane is suitably gruff as David and Rupert Everett does a fantastic job of making Charlie ‘human’ but also slightly ‘off.’ Alice Eve presents Claire in a way that probably reflects a lot of people reliant on social media for validation and Garance Marillier puts in a great performance as Magda/Pavel convincingly portraying Pavel as more naïve than the young woman he is inhabiting.

However, the number of stories we see, and the short running time mean that there is limited time to explore them in detail and many viewers may feel a bit short-changed as not all sections are tied up in nice little bows. Claire abandons her reliance on GOD 2.0, but at what cost? Liam’s family dynamic has a strong potential to explore issues of race and class, but this section is over before you know it, the implications of his mother’s actions largely ignored. David talks to the abyss of space about this daughter, but we get very little time with her to see things from her perspective. Personally, I am here for films that ask questions and encourage the audience to answer them (2001 is my favourite film of all time) but not everyone is going to be as happy, and I suspect this might be where some of the poorer review scores come from; some of the stories just needed a little more time to further explore the film’s themes. While I am happy to have questions posed, it felt as though the film itself didn’t quite know where some of the stories were going and some viewers just won’t have the desire to do the heavy lifting for the film.

My biggest issue was, however, the ending.


***FAIR WARNING – THE NEXT COUPLE OF PARAGRAPHS CONTAIN SERIOUS SPOILERS***


As David watches the asteroid hit Earth’s atmosphere, breaking up and pummelling the planet with numerous, civilisation-ending meteors, he is left as the last man in existence. This conjures up feelings and emotions that will make you consider your own life and future and asks the question of how you would react in that situation; what is the meaning of your life? Imagining yourself, drifting alone in space while looking down at everything you ever knew or loved burning is going to make you think.

But then… the punchline.

The film ends in a way that I am not sure whether it is David’s fragile sanity finally snapping, or an attempt at a joke. Either way, it really damaged the ending for me, and the philosophical questions that had been asked up to that point were lost in a clunky one-liner.

We went from 2001 to The Simpsons and, while I have no issue with either, the switch was jarring and out of place. It is funny, but the rest of the film is not played for laughs, so it just didn’t quite land for me.


***YOU CAN COME BACK NOW***


I really wanted to love this film, it sounded right up my street, but I was left a little disappointed immediately after watching WARNING. However, the following day I found it was still stuck in my head and, despite what I said about the various sections feeling ‘incomplete’ I did find myself thinking through the stories, what they all mean and how they reflect issues and questions we are all facing. Four or five days later, although I appreciate I was writing this review, my mind kept coming back to WARNING and its tales of, well, warning.

A few days after watching I would give WARNING a 7/10 but the very final lines of dialogue with David grated on me and felt wildly at odds with the rest of the movie, so WARNING loses a point for that, but gets a still respectable 6.

There are some very low scores on IMDB which I think are grossly unfair and do not really reflect the attempt made by the writers and director. WARNING sets itself up as an existential examination of the human condition and the meaning of life which isn’t always successful, but there is much to like and worth your time if you like smart science-fiction.

The film is not perfect, and some people will still find the lack of resolutions problematic. However, at only 85 minutes, you won’t get bored but, if you want a film that answers more questions than it poses, then perhaps WARNING is not for you.
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WARNING is a film with lofty ambitions which, for me, didn’t quite hit the mark, although I did enjoy it. Ultimately, it cuts itself off from the greatness of the films it pays tribute to by presenting stories that won’t feel fully formed to many and by adding a coda which I am still not sure if it is meant to be funny or not, but which undermines everything that has come before.

The Old Ways

Deep in the Veracruz jungles, Mexican American journalist Cristina Lopez is held captive by a mysterious bruja, or witch doctor who is convinced she's possessed by a demon. Ultimately her fight for survival becomes one for her soul.

Initial release: October 2020
Director: Christopher Alender
Languages: English; Spanish
Written by: Marcos Gabriel
Produced by: Christa Boarini; T. Justin Ross; David Grove Churchill Viste
A horror film review by Sam Kurd 

You know those films where a group of (mostly white) people wander into the jungle and fall foul of the native tribes there, who kidnap and torture them while we the audience are meant to thank goodness we’re safely in ‘civilisation’ and far from such ‘barbaric’ people?


Well despite initial appearances, this is definitely not one of those films.


The Old Ways is the second feature from director Christopher Alender and screenwriter Marcos Gabriel, who previously collaborated on Memorial Day and… er… Muppets Now. Though this is something of a special effects extravaganza, there are certainly no felt monsters with ping pong ball eyes on display here (though that would be pretty hilarious).


Brigitte Kali Canales (Fear the Walking Dead) is Cristina, an investigative reporter who has returned from the States to Veracruz, where she lived as a child, in order to investigate an ancient site called La Boca, rumoured to be cursed. Unfortunately for her she is abducted and held against her will.


She’s defiant at first, raging against her captors, pleading for release. Despite her heritage, she doesn’t speak any Spanish – but her cousin Miranda (Andrea Cortés) is there to explain  – it seems Cristina may be possessed by an evil spirit, and an exorcism is required to save her soul, whether she wants it or not. Cue a procession of rituals held by a wise woman (Julie Vera), a bruja, attempting to draw out the demon. Cristina starts to see and hear terrible things, but between whatever her captors have given her and the heroin withdrawal she goes through, could all this be pure hallucination? Or is she indeed possessed by a terrible evil?


It’s so refreshing to see an exorcism film through a new cultural lens like this. No ‘power of Christ compels you’, no pea soup and sad priests struggling with their faith. Instead we have a woman who has absolute conviction in her faith, practising an art that was handed down to her through the generations since ancient times. And we have a possessee whose broken past and broken connection to her cultural roots left her wide open to desecration by the demon Postekhi, the “death god of broken things”. Perhaps the film doesn’t revolutionise the exorcism subgenre, but it’s a rich tapestry and backdrop to set it against.


The acting is mostly great – Canales gets a little wobbly at times during the more introspective parts of her journey, but for the most part she really sells the peril and gives a great physical performance during the rituals. Julie Vera as Luz the Bruja is at once mysterious and aloof but surprisingly tender; you can tell that she feels for the suffering of those she has to help. She and Canales play off each other very well.


It’s a tense rollercoaster of a film, swiftly going from toe-curling suspense (the sequence with the snakes had my heart firmly lodged in my mouth!) to spooling out just enough of Cristina’s back story to make us go ‘ok, I see…’ before dropping us into another bout of terror.  It looks gorgeous, never drags and even though the ending isn’t exactly unpredictable it’s definitely more than satisfying  Oh, and the soundtrack by Lovett is bloody brilliant, I’m listening to it as I write.


Ultimately it’s a film about cultural disconnection and alienation, with a lovely dollop of gore and creeptastic creature effects thrown in.


If you liked Drag Me to Hell but want to see something a little bit less goofy and a lot less racist (let’s be real, I love me some Drag Me to Hell but it is kind of hella racist), this is the one to go for!