In THE BELKO EXPERIMENT (2016), 80 Americans working for Belko Industries in Bogota, Colombia, show up one day to work and find armed guards at the gate. As the workers gossip about what’s going on and settle into their normal office routines, a voice comes over the loudspeaker and announces that a game has begun. If three people are not dead within several minutes, six will be killed. Metal walls slide across the windows, sealing them inside. While panicking over what might be happening, nobody takes the threat seriously until six people die. When the workers signed up for their jobs, they agreed to tracers being implanted in their heads in case they were kidnapped for ransom. These tracers can be remotely controlled to explode.

The Voice returns to the loudspeaker and then tells the staff that if thirty of them are not dead in two hours, sixty will be killed.

The result is immediate breakdown into factions spanning human responses to a scenario like this. Some, including COO Barry (Tony Goldwyn) and executive Wendell (John McGinley), want to raid the arms locker and, in an orderly fashion based on utilitarian ethics, come up with thirty bodies. Others, such as well-liked employee Mike Milch (John Gallagher Jr.), sees the game as a no-win scenario and says they shouldn’t play it, as they’re probably all going to be killed anyway and murder is morally the worst thing you can do. Everybody else is caught in the middle, siding with one or the other or frozen in the middle, unable to act.

What a great movie. I hadn’t held out too high a hope for it, as the idea has been done before (BATTLE ROYALE, etc.). But it goes to show you that a basic movie idea can be stellar if it’s done right. There are a lot of characters but all of them are memorable in some way, and you feel every death. The violence and gore is off the charts and works beautifully contrasted with the corporate setting, everybody in suits and skirts grabbing anything in the building that could be used as a weapon. There are some great surprises, people you don’t expect to die buying it in a flash. It’s one of those crazy movies where you find yourself laughing and eating popcorn while watching total terror and mayhem.

The movie offered opportunities for corporate satire, but it didn’t go that way, and I’m glad for it. It didn’t need to be THE OFFICE with extreme violence. THE BELKO EXPERIMENT played it straight and entertained the hell out of me, without reaching for any big lessons or contrived humor. What we’re given is human beings in escalating panic and terror until they find out what they’re made of. The ending serves up an explanation that offers little in the way of surprise but again, how it’s handled was satisfying. The overarching message seems to be most people will kill to survive, but the reasons vary. Even those who are most morally opposed to it just need the right reason.

In short, THE BELKO EXPERIMENT was a ton of fun. Recommended.

DIG TWO GRAVES (2017) is a supernatural tale of revenge focused on character, great cinematography, brooding atmosphere, and a strong Southern Gothic flavor. Though the resolution sort of felt like a brilliant poker game ending with everybody folding their cards, it’s a great film and I hope to see more like it.

Southern Illinois, 1947. Two policemen drive out into the country in the night and dump two bodies in a quarry pond. This done, the deputy aims his gun at the other man and tells him he isn’t sheriff anymore.

Flash forward 30 years to 1977. Sean dares younger sister Jake (Samantha Isler) to jump into the quarry pond, promising they’ll go together. After he dies in the pond, Jake is scarred and guilt-ridden. Then three strange men confront her with a deal. She can get her brother back if she trades some other boy’s life for his. And they have a boy in mind.

The men are from a gypsy clan that appears to worship snakes and know magic. They offer a gruesome bargain, but what they really want is revenge. For Jake is the granddaughter of the deputy (the awesome Ted Levine), who is now sheriff, and the boy is the son of the old sheriff–the two men who dumped the bodies in the quarry pond. Two men who themselves are nurturing a 30-year-old hate for each other.

The film is a bit of a slow burn, with plenty of moments establishing character, particularly between Jake and her grandfather. The backstory explaining current events is revealed in pieces that come together nicely. The three strange men are great–menacing while also seductive in their offer. The magic elements mesh with the story well enough that they elevate rather than distract. The strange characters, setting half in wilderness and half in a decaying town, and grotesque elements deliver a strong Southern Gothic feel.

Unfortunately, while the end delivers on the whole, it doesn’t pack much of a punch. Everything is wrapped up but I wasn’t left with a wow feeling. At the same time, I appreciated the filmmakers didn’t try to go Hollywood with the ending.

Overall, I liked DIG TWO GRAVES. I’ve never been a fan of torture porn or slasher movies. This is the kind of horror movie I like–characters I care about faced with difficult choices in a world where the grotesque is unexpected but possible.

A CURE FOR WELLNESS (2016) is an average horror thriller dressed up as art. I enjoyed it but found it failing to live up to its extraordinary potential.

The story begins with Lockhart, who is assigned by his employers to travel to a restored castle in a remote town in the Swiss Alps to retrieve Mr. Pembroke, one of the financial firm’s partners who has entered a wellness center and won’t come home. Lockhart’s flaw is he despises weakness and believes one can only survive by being ruthless. He travels to the center but ends up in a car accident, resulting in him becoming one of the patients. Along the way, he unravels the mystery of the “cure” that the patients are hooked and the mystery of the castle itself. He solves his flaw by caring for another person, Hannah, the mad scientist’s daughter.

The film is visually beautiful, laced with mystery, and featuring a horror element that is intriguing. However, when all is revealed, it’s interesting but pretty conventional stuff. Part of the problem is A CURE FOR WELLNESS sprawls and is weakly structured, making you wait seemingly endlessly for that reveal, and the protagonist simply wasn’t likeable enough to keep me invested. In that way, it reminded me of some of Tim Burton’s movies, which I love to look at but otherwise bored me to tears. I think for me I had a problem with big expectations. The trailer was amazing, promising a lurid psychological horror mystery, but in the end it delivered fairly conventional fare with great visuals.

As a side note, 20th Century Fox, the production company, got into trouble by creating fake news websites to promote the film. Big mistake.

All said, A CURE FOR WELLNESS is a visually arresting and otherwise somewhat engaging film, but doesn’t deliver on its extraordinary potential.

RAW (2017) is a French film about a young woman’s awakening that happens to include a genetic desire for human flesh. A strait-laced and innocent vegetarian, Justine is attending her first week of veterinary school, following in the footsteps of her parents and more experienced sister Alexa. The week includes heavy hazing, drinking, partying and sex, students trying to fit in within a brutal academic and social environment. In one humiliating ritual, the freshmen are splattered with animal blood and required to eat a sliver of raw meat, in Justine’s case a kidney.

This taste of meat awakens her desire, a deep and all-consuming hunger for human flesh. She tries to satiate it with alcohol and sex, but it’s a losing battle. Her older sister Alexa wants to guide her through it, but Alexa’s domineering nature and Justine’s resistance combine to set their sibling rivalry ablaze.

My only criticism is as with other movies, much of the narrative tension relies on people not asking basic questions and communicating. “Oh, I’m a cannibal, I’ll just roll with it,” is not something we’d expect someone to think. I’m good with misunderstandings propelling conflict, but in this case there’s an utter failure to communicate, resulting in over the top drama. I was also oversold on the film being disturbing and erotic. It is, but not that much for viewers familiar with the genre.

Still, RAW has real strength, visually compelling, constantly intriguing and occasionally gross. It’s a coming of age story about a girl discovering herself, exploring her desires and asserting herself in the world–with cannibalism functioning both as metaphor and a very real thing. It’s also a film about love–the sisters’ rivalry appears to stem from both Justine asserting herself and the sisters loving each other so much it compels them to provoke excuses to bite. About loving so much you want to eat, about loving so much you’re willing to be eaten.

Overall, RAW is a visually arresting and titillating film combining cannibalism with sibling rivalry and erotic overtones, not your usual fare, and for me that made it a fun movie to watch.