I eagerly anticipated LOVECRAFT COUNTRY, HBO’s cosmic horror drama series. Loosely based on the novel by Matt Ruff, it takes us into the Lovecraft mythos through an African-American lens while examining big themes like America’s sad history of deep prejudice. Despite nailing many core elements, the show is so scattered and unfocused that despite the show’s earnest appeal to invest in the characters, I just couldn’t. There’s enough drama and spectacle to make it fun, but it often felt more like work than play.

The show has a fantastic premise, which is a family that practices magic has an African-American branch through bastardy, creating competition for a powerful birthright. Unfortunately, this premise doesn’t crystallize until we’re deep into the show, which kitchen-sinks Lovecraftian elements that are never really scary or do what cosmic horror is supposed to do, which is create a sense of wonder, mystery, and dread. (The girls who appear in a curse are a fantastic exception, they were amazing.) The result feels more like an anthology than a coherent story as long side trips are taken into explorations of prejudice against Blacks, women, homosexuals, and enemies in war, though the overarching narrative does eventually come together nicely at the end, with some brave story choices and satisfying sense of empowerment. The real horror in the show comes from, well, White people, who almost hunt Black people for sport, which can make the show feel exhausting at times but provocatively and ably also show White viewers what it’s like to live day to day as a target of mindless prejudice. There are frequent nonfiction recordings playing over visuals, pithy statements by great thinkers like James Baldwin, that give the show real gravitas early on but later clash as the show barrels ahead into full-on ’50s pulp.

Now to some of the story basics. The setting is fantastic, the horror effects are solid, and the acting is amazing, with the actors pouring every ounce of their hearts and being into their roles. These elements provide a solid bedrock for the series. Unfortunately, despite all that, character motivation and conflict change on a dime episode to episode, making it almost impossible for me to invest in them and care what happened. After a few episodes, the show felt like a hot mess, pulpy and fun at times but with shifting characters and discordant heavy thematic forays toward gravitas. One of the show’s producers is Jordan Peale of US and GET OUT fame, so it’s not surprising the show is a little nuts but sharply provocative, but while the approach works for me in his movies, it doesn’t quite in ten hours of series viewing.

So overall, I liked LOVECRAFT COUNTRY but despite its courage and distinct identity, I didn’t love it. It’s got a lot of great elements but they just didn’t come together right for me until too late, and its focus on pulp over cosmic dread waters down the power of the story.

THE NIGHTINGALE (2018, streaming on Shudder, though it’s not really a horror movie) by writer/director Jennifer Kent, creator of the successful horror film THE BABBADOOK (2014), is a brutal exploration of colonialism, exploitation, power, and revenge. While it softens in the last act, I found it compelling for its tension, unflinching brutality, and fantastic performances, notably by Baykali Ganambarr, Aisling Franciosi, and Sam Claflin.

Set in 1825, the film begins at a military outpost in an Australian penal colony where a war against the native aboriginals is brewing and, where Clare lives in indentured servitude with her husband and baby. While overdue for release due to time served, the dapper but psychopathic lieutenant refuses to let his “nightingale”–so named because she sings for him and his drunken, loutish soldiers–go, and he treats her harshly as a sexual toy. After a tragic series of events, Clare sets out in the bush with an aboriginal tracker named Billy on a grisly mission of revenge.

The film was criticized for its graphic depictions of rape, which when combined with casual murder make this an uncompromisingly nasty film, though none of it is celebrated so much as held up for inspection with a dare to look away, similar to COME AND SEE. But this was a nasty time in a nasty place, where brutality endlessly cascades downhill from the British officers to their soldiers to women and indentured servants to the aboriginals who are losing everything. As such, the film is an indictment of colonialism by showing its everyday consequences on real people.

Clare makes an impressive and sympathetic avenging angel, while Billy is portrayed with an amazing combination of ferocity, defiance, and sympathy by acting first-timer Baykali Ganambarr. The trek is full of hardships, and they come to care for each other as they grow increasingly united by cause and a realization they share the same place on the world’s totem pole. The acting, tension, and the wild setting’s frontier immersion are all extremely well done.

In the last act, however, the story takes a turn in an unexpected direction–notably a big character shift in Clare–that felt wonky and wasn’t quite as satisfying for me, and the ending didn’t have quite the punch it might have if it had maintained its momentum. Overall, though, I really liked the film, which I found rich, compelling, and thoughtful.

BEHIND THE MASK: THE RISE OF LESLIE VERNON (2006, streaming on Shudder) is a horror mockumentary about a would-be serial killer preparing for his first massacre in a world where legendary killers like Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, and Freddy Krueger are real. This was a lot of fun.

The story focuses on a small documentary crew following Leslie Vernon as he makes all the preparations for a grisly massacre in the hopes of joining his pantheon of heroes. We gain insight into the rules, ethics, vast amount of training, and meticulous planning that make all the crazy tropes of the slasher genre make sense. As the big night looms, Taylor, the documentary maker, and her trusty cameramen finally face the very real consequences of all this, and must make a decision.

BEHIND THE MASK could have traded entirely on its inside jokes but instead achieves its own identity as an homage by delivering something much deeper and more satisfying. Leslie Vernon is funny, sympathetic, and utterly menacing, an artist in training who wants to become a legend. The lore is great as we learn the “tricks of the trade” of seemingly supernatural mass murder. The comedy is consistently solid, and the small roles by Robert Englund (NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET) and Zelda Rubenstein (POLTERGEIST) are great. The last act rolls out as a slasher film as good as those it parodies. Another example of what indie filmmakers can achieve with a strong idea and good writing. Highly recommended for horror fans.

LA LLORONA (2019, streaming on Shudder) is a powerful if a bit slow-paced horror film that reminds us the real horror, when it finally shows its face, is often the truth, is often what’s real.

The General, a former dictator who ruthlessly deployed military forces in ethnic cleansing during fighting against communists in the early 1980s, is now an old man living in a democracy that has decided to heal by putting him on trial for genocide. But a vengeful spirit may claim the ultimate justice. The film reinvents the traditional myth of La Llorona, or The Weeping Woman, that has many forms in Latin American culture, one of which is a woman who captures the eye of a rich man who then loses interest in her, resulting in her murdering her children and becoming damned to search for them eternally in Hell.

All I can say is wow to this one. It’s incredibly well done. Each scene takes its time but never fails to be engaging. Artistically, it’s a visual feast. Thematically, it is a powerful political story of a dictator hiding the truth of his brutal crimes behind a wall of lies, rationalizations, and the physical form of a pitiable old man, while an angry population demands these crimes be recognized. It is also a powerful story of a ghost seeking not vengeance, but justice.

As a ghost story, it’s not very scary, though there is an underlying tension that builds between the cries of the mob and the gradual revelation of the horrific act that created the ghost, and when the final truth is revealed, that is when the real horror shows its face, and we find out who the real monster is.

I loved LA LLORONA for its great storytelling, strong themes, and clever combination of an old trope with dramatic political drama.

PRESERVATION (2014, streaming on Amazon Prime) is a survival horror thriller about three people who venture into the woods for a camping trip only to realize they’re being hunted. The film gets a lot right, but the script’s reliance on cliches and convenience weakens the overall result.

The film begins with Mike (Aaron Staton), his wife Wit (Wrenn Schmidt), and brother Sean (Pablo Schreiber) venturing into an abandoned state park for a camping weekend. Immediately, we’re introduced to tensions in the group. Sean is a damaged war veteran recently discharged, Mike is overwhelmed with work but trying to support his brother, and Wit is dismayed at how all this is affecting her marriage. The tensions deepen as we discover Sean is attracted to Wit, and that Wit has a secret. After a day of hunting, everything changes as the group’s gear is stolen, and they discover they’re being hunted.

PRESERVATION has some good things going for it. There’s some good direction and a solid score producing a sometimes creepy atmosphere, and while I don’t know Wrenn Schmidt, I’m familiar with Pablo Schreiber and Aaron Staton from THE WIRE and MADMEN, and consider them very capable actors. There’s a great setup here for a trio of people with deep tension between them suddenly finding themselves being hunted and forced to fight to survive, but it doesn’t pay off.

There is plenty of stilted dialogue the actors could only do so much with, but the main problem is the antagonists are omniscient and invincible until they’re not, and then they are again, etc., resulting in a pileup of horror movie cliches and nonsensical plot development that wrecked a film that otherwise could have been terrific cat and mouse survival horror with a message that in danger, humans will do anything to survive. Survival horror should bring the viewer into the story and let them participate in choices and consequences, but PRESERVATION rolled out for me more as a series of set pieces where things just happen in an easy predictable way. Most of the tension among the protagonists is also blown almost as soon as the antagonist reveals itself.

I hate bumming on art as I know how much effort and love goes into these things, but for me, PRESERVATION’s weak script tanks everything else that is promising about the film. I just can’t recommend this one.