Author of adventure/thriller and horror fiction

HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS (2022)

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In HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS (2022), a 19th century applejack salesman’s orchard is destroyed when a beaver gnaws through one of the beams supporting a giant keg, which rolls into his house and blows up. Jean wakes up in winter and finds himself in a struggle to catch food, then decides to become a fur trapper, and finally sets out to trap enough furs he can win the hand of the lovely daughter of the local supplies trader.

This movie is wacked in the best ways, sort of a live-action, multimedia TOM AND JERRY cartoon where the wildlife consists of people in animal costumes and the conflict between Jean and the animals plays as nonstop slapstick comedy. There’s a simple gaming element in Jean acquiring enough fish and pelts to trade to slowly build up his capabilities with items like weapons. The last act overplays its hand a bit, but overall, it’s great fun, with plenty of goofy laugh-out-loud moments.

I enjoyed this one a lot for its borrowing what worked about old childhood cartoons and using them to carve out its own goofy identity with a simple story that is fun and never, ever takes itself seriously.

JOKER: FOLIE A DEUX (2024)

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In JOKER: FOLIE A DEUX, everyone’s favorite archvillain returns in a film I didn’t hate as much as some but could not appreciate.

I enjoyed the first film in 2019, though I’m not sure “enjoyed” is the right word, as I found it a good film but unpleasant and sometimes feeling a bit like work. I certainly admired its ambition, tone, and grit, how it took a comic book villain and threw him into the real world with a startling and surprising origin story. But I found it pretty cynical overall. Unlike in the excellent DARK KNIGHT, where the Joker was crazy but had a strong guiding philosophy that directly contrasted with Batman’s, in JOKER, the Joker is, well, just mentally ill, beaten down by the world so much he becomes a grandstanding narcissist who murders people he resents. The riot at the end of the movie teased that there might be more to it, as a lot of angry people in Gotham connect with his lashing out, suggesting the start of a movement celebrating chaos and the birth of a true supervillain. I thought, okay, that was the origin story, now we get the story of an archvillain.

Instead, we got, well, this.

First off, again I didn’t hate the movie, as I curbed my expectations before going into it. But after watching, I have to agree the film seemed to go out of its way to antagonize the first movie’s fans by not only subverting but curb stomping pretty much any hopeful expectation they might have had. Instead of a rampaging supervillain, we get a neutralized and neutered Joker, a tedious courtroom drama, and a musical (which I didn’t mind at first but thought should have been used as an accent instead of such a huge part of the runtime). Lady Gaga plays an intriguing Harley Quinn, and she acts as a catalyst for him to rediscover his inner Joker, only for there to be really almost no payoff for either character. Otherwise, the story pretty much stands for most of the movie, revisiting the events in the first film for most of its run and not really offering much that is new or interesting.

I caught a review on YouTube where I thought the reviewer really nailed how to fix it–tell the story from Harley’s point of view. She has a philosophy for the Joker’s chaos and uses Arthur Fleck to become the next Joker. Done this way, there would have been a real dynamic and engaging story instead of watching one where the story appears to retread its original material, leading some reviewers to wonder if the filmmakers were trolling their own work’s fans.

Anyway, if you liked the first movie, my guess is you probably won’t like the sequel. I don’t regret watching it, but I did find it a real failed opportunity.

HERETIC (2024)

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HERETIC (2024) finds horror in conventional religion regardless of where you stand on belief. With solid pacing, stimulating ideas, and terrific performances, notably Hugh Grant playing a charming baddie, it’s a truly standout horror film.

When I wrote THE CHILDREN OF RED PEAK several years back, one of the points I wanted to make in the novel is whether it’s a cult or a mainstream religion, religion itself is, well, terrifying if you think about it beyond the comforting assurances. Cosmic horror. The idea that there’s a supreme being judging everything you do and will burn you forever if you don’t love him enough or worship him the right way. The alternate idea that there’s nothing at all out there, no meaning or reason for being alive, and death is oblivion.

HERETIC cuts right to the heart of this existential dread (for another example of this, check out the Netflix series MIDNIGHT MASS). In the movie, two Mormon doorknockers, Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East), visit Mr. Reed (Grant), who has expressed interest in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. They’re hoping for a convert, but he has something else in mind, a game of sorts about faith and belief. Soon, the two young women will find themselves trapped and forced to play.

If you’re super religious, here’s your trigger warning: Faith is discussed in many ways, but there is a strong point of view that is not flattering. That being said, HERETIC isn’t a religion-bashing film, not at all. The women, of course, also get their say, with the suggestion that God is not necessary for religion to be good. And the film is more about the questions than any answers.

As a horror film, the first act is almost perfect. The dread as the women start to realize things aren’t as they seem, the mounting tension as they try to talk themselves out of it, the calm and almost cheerful menace as Mr. Reed guides them without force to follow his script. In the second act, the horror steps up, but I didn’t find the third act, as the unknown becomes known, as strong, nor the final payoff. It’s pretty conventional and thwarted my hope the conflict would all boil down to a moral choice that provided a different answer to Mr. Reed’s explanation as to what the “one true religion” actually is.

Overall, I loved this highly thoughtful and provocative horror film and was glad I caught it in the theater. Definitely recommended.

SMILE 2 (2024)

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Holy cow, I did not expect such a solid movie from a sequel of a middling horror film. SMILE 2 is terrific horror.

Full disclosure, I thought the first movie was, well, I didn’t think much of it. A fellow horror author advised me to check out the sequel, and he wasn’t wrong that it’s night and day with the two films. The sequel has a strong emotional anchor, strong themes, excellent horror, great acting, an entertaining inside look at what it’s like to be a pop star, and a killer ending.

The first film is basically about a curse where you and only you can see demonically smiling people who terrorize you until you die or witness a death, and then the curse passes on. In the second movie, it finds its way to a drug dealer who in turn passes it on to Skye Riley, a pop star (played to the hilt by actress/singer Naomi Scott), who finds herself in an escalating nightmare.

Skye has her own inner demons to contend with. She just got out of rehab and is trying to rebuild her career with a new tour. She decided to stop using after a car crash that killed her boyfriend, which still haunts her. This provides a strong emotional core for the film and a theme of wrestling with addiction, as the smiling curse similarly tries to break down her will and control.

SMILE 2 is a bit long for a horror movie at over 2 hours, but I enjoyed how it let itself breathe instead of throwing one horror setpiece jump scare (the jump scares are actually rare and used for maximum effect) after another at me. We get a lot of time seeing Skye doing her job–dealing with fans, practicing with backup dancers, and so on.

My main criticism is something the film actually overcame. I hate socially embarrassing ghosts, the kind of spirits that make you hallucinate so you freak out in front of a crowd or wind up doing something harmful. It delivers more anxiety than fun, and it doesn’t seem like a fair fight. But SMILE 2 overcame that usual objection, and I ran with it and enjoyed the ride until the killer ending.

Overall, I loved SMILE 2, it was a real surprise. Recommended.

UZUMAKI

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UZUMAKI: SPIRAL INTO HORROR (Max/Adult Swim) is a four-part miniseries based on Junjo Ito’s haunting manga about a Japanese town haunted by a “spiral curse.” After being disappointed by the 2000 live-action adaptation, I checked out this anime take and found it a pretty good adaptation, from the visuals to the quirky score.

The manga is a series of interconnected stories about Kirie, a teenage girl whose boyfriend, Shuichi, believes their town is haunted by uzumaki, the spiral and mesmerizing secret shape of the world. Time after time, she sees people become obsessed or infected by spirals. As the incidents mount, the spirals grow until becoming a whirlpool threatening to consume everything.

In some ways, the story reminded me of PI, a 1998 film about a man who discovers a number that is one of the names of God and drives him to the brink of madness. UZUMAKI has the same level of originality and strangeness, though it takes its concept much farther, straight to an unflinching, very satisfying finish.

The adaptation is basically the manga come to life. Fans of Ito’s work might be disappointed as it has a high fidelity to the original but periodically feels a little lifeless, though I went the other way, kind of wishing they’d interpreted the manga in a way that went deeper with character and otherwise put a fresh spin on it.

Overall, I liked it quite a bit. The anime was a great way to revisit this classic story. I hope you’ll check it out if you’re unfamiliar with Ito’s work.

MADS (2024)

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In MadS (2024), a French zombie movie, a young party goer becomes infected with a strange virus. Shot in one continuous take, the film packs a lot of frantic energy and has a lot of unpredictability, but the limitations of the form may have some viewers restless while watching.

The movie begins with a young man scoring coke from his dealer. On the way home, he is forced to pull over, which is when a strange woman jumps into the car and appears to kill herself, splashing him with blood. Frantic, he drives home and is drawn out of the house by a woman he’s dating and their friends for a night out on the town. As the night wears on, he becomes increasingly paranoid, appears to have gas mask-wearing soldiers with rifles chasing him, and finally breaks down and acts erratic.

The film then switches point of view to the woman and then to her friend. Along the way, it’s uncertain if they’re sharing a really horrible drug trip or turning into zombies. This is more or less answered by the end, but the question hung over much of the movie for me.

The movie doesn’t bother too much with character, preferring to lean on the one continuous take to stimulate the viewer. The only trick is this can be fatiguing, and there are very long stretches of the POV character moving from place to place where not much is happening.

By the end, I felt like I’d eaten a chocolate bar for dinner, if you know what I mean.

All in all, though, I had fun with it. The continuous take is always an impressive technical feat. The actors all act naturally, which along with the somewhat grainy aesthetic gives the whole thing a bit of a cinema verite feel. It’s both a zombie movie and not a zombie movie, inspired by them but doing its own thing, showing how a z-poc might start from the infected’s point of view.