Author of sci-fi/fantasy, horror and adventure/thriller fiction

COHERENCE (2013)

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COHERENCE (2013, streaming on Amazon Prime) is a science-fiction film that goes far beyond its limitations with interesting ideas and a close look at how facing the unknown can punish the human psyche.

The film opens with people arriving at a dinner party, where we get to know their stories, including fertile ground for potential interpersonal conflicts. The group talks about a comet due to pass overhead that night. When cell phones die and the power goes out across the neighborhood, they treat it as just an entertaining twist for the party. But then they notice there’s a house down the street that’s lit up. The house looks like theirs. And there are people inside who look just like them.

Shot over five days on a shoestring and largely improvised by the cast, the film achieves an impressive sum for its parts. It starts off rough, with everybody talking at once during the party, which feels improvised. Once the central conflict reveals itself, however, things get real interesting and the actors fall into a more natural rhythm. The result is sort of a sci-fi BLAIR WITCH PROJECT as they find themselves in an escalating quantum event.

By the end, the characters question who everybody is and even where they are, start to break down facing the unknown, and one of them decides on a dangerous solution.

Overall, COHERENCE doesn’t make any of my sci-fi top lists, but it’s impressive for what it achieves for its limitations, and I found the premise intriguing, with an entertaining result.

DOWNFALL (2004)

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Depicting Hitler’s last days in his besieged Berlin bunker, DOWNFALL (2004) is a powerful character study not only of Hitler himself but the Nazi mentality in general. I thoroughly enjoyed it, though it may drag for some viewers due to its length and bleakness.

It was the movie that launched a thousand memes, as a scene depicting Hitler ranting over failure of one of his generals to break the siege turned up on YouTube again and again with fresh subtitles having Hitler complain about various setbacks in American politics, pop culture, and everyday life. Some of these are pretty amusing, but I avoided the movie because the last thing I needed was to watch Hitler mope around a bunker for 2-1/2 hours. I finally decided to give it a go and I’m glad I did, as the movie really has something to say.

The story is based on firsthand accounts from several people, notably Traudl Junge, a young woman chosen by Hitler to be his personal secretary in 1942. Starstruck, she is all too happy to serve the Fuhrer. Fast forward to 1945, Hitler’s birthday. The Soviets are shelling Berlin, and soon tanks are broaching the city. As the writing on the wall becomes clear, Hitler decides to go down with the ship instead of flee his capital, and the top cadre of the Nazi Party unravels between those who stay at his side to the end and others who flee like rats.

The film was controversial for its depiction of Hitler as, well, human. I had no problem with that, and by the end, I hated Hitler and everything he represents even more. Yes, the Nazis weren’t monsters, they were ordinary people who did monstrous things because of ideology and a yes-man echo chamber that created an alternate reality, and that’s even more terrifying and provides an even greater warning to us now. As the Soviets bring that alternate reality crashing down, we see what everybody is made of, and yup, they’re horrible.

Hitler comes across as the leader of a death cult–personally charming, believing he can change events simply by wishing it so, throwing followers under the bus whenever convenient, blaming everybody but himself, brainwashing kids to pointlessly fight and die, and ultimately killing himself and expecting everybody else to die with him. And like a cult, many of his followers are all too happy to die with him. All the Nazis in their stark uniforms, they look more like dangerous cult members wearing drab costumes than actual political and military leaders of a feared and aggressive nation. Even now at my age, I still expect the Nazis to at least be grand due to all the pageantry and discipline, but they’re just pathetic.

Though we’re shown several people who are somewhat sympathetic, such as Junge, a military doctor, and the general in charge of the city’s defense, they’re only sympathetic by omission of certain truths about them and contrast against those even more monstrous. Honestly, there’s not a single truly likeable character in the film. The only characters I was truly rooting for were the children, and seeing them follow the same fate as their parents was painful. Seeing most of these people go along with Hitler’s desire for the whole country to die, Hitler requiring old men and children to fight to the last, and the Nazi leaders having Bacchanalian parties while their subjects suffer a horrific struggle to survive–yeah, you kind of look forward to them exiting the world, and good riddance.

Overall, DOWNFALL is an excellent character study of Hitler and portrayal of the Nazis, warning about blindly following extremist ideologies, and a raw and believable account of Hitler’s last days.

PRESERVATION (2014)

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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.

THE LAST KINGDOM Seasons 2-3

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I started watching THE LAST KINGDOM (Netflix), a historical series about the Viking invasions of England based on Bernard Cornwell’s THE SAXON STORIES, on a lark, and it’s become a real love. After watching and reviewing Season 1, I moved on to the second and third seasons, and found them even more enjoyable.

In seasons 2-3, Uhtred, a Saxon captured and raised as a Dane only to be thrust back among the world of the Saxons as a young man, has matured into a reputable warrior and a reliable sword in the service of Alfred the Great, king of Wessex, the last major surviving Saxon realm. I won’t spoil the plots, but I can say each season delivers a reliably solid story: likeable hero, terrific secondary characters, fantastic battles, realistic action, and a medieval world that looks lived in and real. It may lack the satisfying complexity of say THE GAME OF THRONES, but it makes a virtue of its simplicity. Each season piles obstacle after obstacle on our hero, but he toughs it out with pragmatism, strength, and just enough compassion and humor, and we know by the end we’re going to get a hell of a catharsis when the Gordian knot is finally cut in triumph. By the end of season 3, I’ve really grown to love these characters.

If you like historical action, I’d recommend this one. It’s a lot of fun.

OUR HOUSE (2018)

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OUR HOUSE (2018, streaming on Netflix) is a fairly solid indie horror film driven by its likeable characters. The film focuses on Ethan, who leaves college to care for his younger siblings, Becca and Matt, after their parents die in an auto accident. At school, Ethan had been working on a device he believes can wirelessly transmit electricity. Continuing to work on it, he finds out that while it doesn’t do what he wants it to do, it does do something incredible: enable the dead to manifest and interact with the living.

It’s different than many horror films in that the central conflict doesn’t really start until deep into the second act. While this slows the story down, it does allow us to fully understand and empathize with each member of the family and make them likeable, with Kate Moyer, who played 10-year-old Becca, practically stealing the show. With this firm foundation, the horror element slowly comes to the fore and builds quickly to the climax. Though the horror element is what I’d call “light” horror, it works because we’re really rooting for the family to make it out okay.

I enjoyed the movie, which besides the characters has two notable virtues: It’s a simple story well told, and it’s not trying to be anything else other than what it is. This is yet another enjoyable watch from XYZ Films, joining the likes of BUSHWICK, I DON’T FEEL AT HOME IN THIS WORLD ANYMORE, MANDY, THE INVITATION, MOM AND DAD, and COLOR OUT OF SPACE; it’s gotten so that when I see XYZ at the start, I know it’s going to be worthwhile.

SURVIVOR’S SONG by Paul Tremblay

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SURVIVOR’S SONG by Paul Tremblay is a literary “zombie” novel with a lot of heart, not a little heartbreak, and a very high degree of realism such it all felt fairly real. I quite enjoyed it.

In the near future, Massachusetts is under quarantine as a new rabies-like disease ravages the animal and now the human population. Like rabies, it’s spread through saliva, but unlike rabies, it incubates in a very short time. When Dr. Ramola Sherman gets a call from Natalie, an old friend who is now eight months pregnant, she hears a frantic plea for help: Natalie has been bitten. Thus begins a journey across a crumbling state to save Natalie and her child before it’s too late.

What I liked: The first thing has to be the world building. I especially enjoy apocalyptic stories where we see the center give way and the rest falling apart. Tremblay’s quarantine zone is filled with panicking people who react in many ways, from denial (including the main characters, to an extent) to paranoia and aggression, along with infected animals and people who lurch and rave as they randomly attack. The police are still in action but overtaxed, vigilantes are taking matters into their own hands, and the hospitals are flooded and starting to break down. Everything rolls out fairly realistically, which made the world feel utterly real to me. The characterizations are for the most part very strong, even the minor characters, and I rooted for Natalie to make it however dimmed her prospects became. I particularly liked two teenagers who treat the apocalypse as something they’ve long awaited and trained for by watching zombie movies. When the story moves, the tension and action are realistic and satisfying.

I had some reservations, notably some long digressions that broke the pacing and tension for me, as well as finding Ramola to be not being nearly as strong a character as Natalie. Despite this, I enjoyed SURVIVOR’S SONG quite a bit, and after reading dozens of zombie novels, found it a standout in a genre to which I’d grown jaded, along with being a solid horror novel overall.