Review: The Beast

Image courtesy of Janus Films.

Henry James' 1903 short story "The Beast in the Jungle" features a character who tells a friend that he lives in constant fear of an unknown catastrophe that he believes will upend his life. It is not the beast that paralyzes him, but rather his fear of it. Fear itself may not be the only thing that the characters in director Bertrand Bonello's mesmerizing new film, "The Beast," may have to fear, as plenty of catastrophes befall the two lead characters during three different time periods. But fear has undoubtedly immobilized them.

Using James' concept - but certainly not the story itself - as a jumping-off point, Bonello's film is a surreal, unsettling, and visually and conceptually dazzling story about two people's inability to connect over a period of about 130 years. The two characters are played by Lea Seydoux and George MacKay, and the nature of their relationships in the various time periods vacillates greatly.

But first, the film opens on what appears to be Bonello himself directing Seydoux, possibly playing herself. She stands in front of a green screen and the director tells her to imagine something that has paralyzed her with fear. Seydoux lets out a bloodcurdling scream and she suddenly breaks up into thousands of pixels as we fade into the first of the three stories.

One story in particular - set in 2044 - acts as the framing device, in which we start and gradually come back to every once in a while. In that story, AI has seemingly taken over after humanity nearly destroyed itself with a catastrophic war. Seydoux's character in this story is in the middle of a process during which AI helps her undergo a "DNA purge," which removes negative memories of the past or even, in this case, past lives. Hence, the two different time periods of previous lives in which Seydoux's character seemingly existed as different people.

The first time period is 1910 during the Paris floods. Seydoux plays the unhappy wife of a doll manufacturer - once again giving Bonello the ability to play around with one of his favorite visual motifs: dolls and mannequins - who gets involved in what is at least an emotional affair - if not more - with an Englishman (MacKay). The film's first hour operates at a measured pace as these two begin to see more of each other. The story culminates in a tragedy during a fire at the doll factory during which the pair must flee by swimming through a flooded basement, a visually stunning sequence that features dolls floating by as the pair try to find an escape route.

A creepy talking doll pops up in the second story, which is set in Los Angeles in 2014, where Seydoux is an aspiring actress/model who is house sitting for a rich person in the Hollywood hills. At night, she goes out alone to nightclubs, which are the most eerily shot sequences at such places in recent memory. There's some beautiful nighttime photography in this sequence as Gabrielle (Seydoux) drives alone down the Sunset Strip and haunting overhead shots of the city go a long way in creating atmosphere.

In the first story, Seydoux went to see a medium to talk about her paralyzing fear, and was told that a pigeon entering her home could be seen as a bad omen. Sure enough, not only does one enter her home in 1910, but it also attacks her. In 2014, the bird makes an appearance and its brutalized carcass is later found in the driveway. 

In the 2014 story, Gabrielle enlists the help of an online psychic, an unsettling woman who appears to think something bad is heading Gabrielle's way. Sure enough, that bad thing is MacKay's Louis Lewansky, a 30-year-old incel who hates women because of his belief that they never give him a chance. He has taken to stalking Gabrielle throughout L.A., often parking his car and sitting on the lawn outside her home.

If the film's first hour is intentionally languid, its second is unbearably intense. Bonello makes great use of Los Angeles as a noir epicenter. The neon-tinted nighttime scenes are frighteningly dreamy and there's a long sequence toward this story's end in which Gabrielle believes an intruder is in the house that is among the scariest scenes I've seen in some time.

Bonello has long been a director of surreal arthouse thrillers such as "Zombi Child" and "Nocturama," and he doesn't attempt to hide his influences in "The Beast." These include everything from giallos and "Titanic" to, naturally, David Lynch. The 2014 story draws some obvious inspiration from Lynch's masterpiece "Mulholland Drive," from its portrayal of Los Angeles as a terrifying dreamscape to a scene in which Gabrielle obsessively watches a TV karaoke show in which someone lip syncs to Roy Orbison's "Evergreen."

Beyond that, "The Beast" is Lynchian in that rather concerning itself too much with the details of plot, it often feels as if it's following dream logic, and there's a free-floating atmosphere of doom throughout the film that reminded me of other L.A.-set Lynch films, namely "Lost Highway" and "Inland Empire." A scene toward the end is set at a bar that gave off "Twin Peaks" vibes and the film's culmination might have been inspired by that TV show's third season finale.

It's during the final sequence - in which we're back in 2044 - that Seydoux's character again speaks with the latest iteration of MacKay's character. He broaches the subject of their love - in the present as well as in past lives - and it results in Seydoux letting out a bloodcurdling scream similar to the one at the beginning in front of the green screen. Is it love itself that's the subject of her foreboding? Is the beast simply living in fear of truly connecting with someone else - or rather, being unable to connect?

"There must be beautiful things in this chaos," says Gabrielle to her stalker. But can we recognize these beautiful things if we live paralyzed by fear, something that seems all too real in 2024 and beyond as we possibly face a future similar to that depicted in the film's 2044 section, where AI requires that mankind blot out all that is human? I'm not sure "The Beast" is a film that can be - or is even meant to be - truly comprehended. Regardless, it's the first great movie of the year.

Review: Civil War

Image courtesy of 

Alex Garland's brutal and intense "Civil War" is a film that deserves praise for its accomplished filmmaking techniques, but left me a bit perplexed due to its lack of context or perspective. It's a well-made movie that wants to have it both ways by stoking the fire but hoping that the flames don't get out of control. 

The film is filled with footage of bloody carnage depicting Americans carrying out violent acts against one another over politics, but it doesn't explain how the fictional version of the nation got to this point and it provides little way in the way of commentary, which in our current moment feels like a missed opportunity.

That being said, there's still a fair amount to praise. It's well shot and the cast - which includes Kirsten Dunst as a seasoned photographer, Stephen McKinley Henderson as her mentor, Cailee Spaeny as a novice photographer, Wagner Moura as a thrill-seeking reporter, Jesse Plemons in a chilling turn as a murderous member of one side of the conflict, and Nick Offerman as an imperial president - is uniformly solid.

The film opens with a riot that turns deadly in New York City, where Dunst's Lee and Moura's Joel are planning a road trip to Washington D.C., where they hope to get an interview with Offerman's president before he's assassinated by an insurrectionist group comprised of the states of California and Texas - a plot element that could only exist in a movie and, in this case, one made by an Englishman - that is moving in on the capitol. Henderson's Sammy is a veteran New York Times reporter who tags along for the ride, while Spaeny's wide-eyed and occasionally callous aspiring photographer Jessie begs for Lee, one of her heroes, to let her come along as well.

It's honorable that the film wants to pay homage to journalists - and their adventures reminded me of old-school journalism thrillers set in war zones, such as "The Year of Living Dangerously" or "Salvador" - but it also ironically makes the mistake that so many print and broadcast journalism outlets have made in recent years: engaging in both sides-ism under the guise of being fair and balanced. 

The film does this by having no mentions of politics or religion - which I found to be an odd choice - but also giving each side traits that could be found in our modern political landscape. Offerman's president is Trumpian in that he has refused to leave office after his second term, while the insurrection looking to oust him is, well, you know. There's no mention of how the country got to this point.

So, while I was impressed by the film's technical feats - the sequence with Plemons' fascistic soldier is the film's most frightening, while the final raid on the White House is handled expertly - the film wants to have it both ways, most likely to sell the most tickets. 

It's an odd conundrum: On the one hand, while I can recommend the picture as a skillfully made dystopian thriller, I also found it odd that a film on this subject in the year 2024 would have no political opinion on the matter. And the few tidbits that are included - video footage from far-right influencer Andy Ngo and a reference to the "Antifa Massacre," which felt like a loaded expression - only further muddy the waters.

Garland previously wrote the screenplay for Danny Boyle's "28 Days Later," another fraught film about societal collapse that is among my favorite horror movies of the 21st century. That film left nothing wanting, whereas "Civil War," while effective as a genre film, feels incomplete. It's worth seeing, but all of the technical prowess on display felt a little like empty calories.

Review: The First Omen

Image courtesy of 20th Century Fox.

"The First Omen" is a horror prequel that nobody probably thought they needed, but it's a surprisingly gripping - especially considering that we know how it turns out - and often frightening (and occasionally disreputable, which in this case isn't a critique) prelude to Richard Donner's 1976 horror classic. It has breathed new life into a horror series that hasn't had an outright good entry since the original.

The film is set in 1971 Rome, and director Arkasha Stevenson from the start creates a creepy vibe, from a sweaty discotheque where two soon-to-be nuns go out for a night on the town to overhead shots of the city that fill the viewer with dread every time they appear.

As the film opens, Margaret Daino (Nell Tiger Free) has just arrived in Rome, where she is to work at an orphanage prior to taking her vows. She has been brought there by a Catholic bishop with some power (Bill Nighy), and it's clear from the start that Margaret has a checkered history. Growing up an orphan, she bounced from place to place and was somewhat, we learn, of a problem child. The visions that plagued her in childhood occasionally pop up to provide a jump scare or two.

A roommate, Luz (Maria Caballero), takes her out to the aforementioned nightclub, where the two women meet some men and have a few drinks. The next day, Margaret can't remember what happened the night before and as she awakens a small spider seems to crawl out of her eye. Ick!

Things at the orphanage seem odd, to say the least, especially the treatment of a problem child named Carlita (Nicole Sorace). The nuns at the orphanage tell Margaret to stay away from Carlita and even lock her up on occasion in a place known as the bad room.

Margaret meets an excommunicated priest (Ralph Ineson) who tells her of a nefarious plan involving a group of powerful church officials. With belief in God on the decline - and, therefore, power in the church's hands dwindling - this group has concocted a scheme to help birth the antichrist with the intention of controlling him, which they believe will draw believers back to the church out of fear.

A plot twist occurs late in the film regarding who the birth mother of the antichrist will be, although it's pretty easy to see coming. Not so easy to predict is the gruesome birth ceremony involving a Caesarean section operation late in the film, which follows a series of gruesome deaths throughout the picture - the effect of a piece of glass on a head, an act of self-immolation, and a traffic accident that is particularly grotesque.

"The First Omen" is what one might call a blasphemous good time. The picture is occasionally outrageous, pretty spooky, and atmospheric - naturally, its Italian setting is utilized for giallo-esque touches (the nightclub especially). I may not have thought another "Omen" film - prequel or otherwise - was necessary at this point, but "The First Omen" is a surprisingly effective one.

Review: Monkey Man

Image courtesy of Universal Pictures.

Dev Patel's ultra-violent and semi-mystical "Monkey Man" is a "John Wick" type of action film set in modern day India to the extent that when the lead character, played by Patel, finds a dog to feed in an alley, I briefly wondered if the pup would be killed, thereby sending Patel's unnamed fighter on a killing rampage.

The dog goes unscathed, which is more than can be said for virtually everyone else in the picture. The film is inspired by the legend of Hanuman, which I won't recap here, but suffice it to say that Patel's character bears some similarity to that legend in that he's a kid from the slums who rises up to challenge the elites.

As the film opens, he is getting paid to lose fights in boxing matches at the behest of a sleazy promoter played by Sharlto Copley, who gets so into his role that saliva often flies from his mouth whilst speaking. In the ring, Patel's "Kid" - as he's known in the credits - wears a monkey mask and is good at taking a punch and a fall. As it turns out, he actually can fight.

Some years before, the Kid watched his mother get murdered by a corrupt police chief (Sikandar Kher) and intends to exact revenge on him as well as the sinister guru (Makarand Deshpande) who is to blame for the death as he was ordering the city's poor to be ordered off their land to make way for a factory. A question that occurred to me while watching the film: Is it typical for a yoga-practicing spiritual guru to be running a factory? 

Regardless, the Kid puts himself in proximity of these corrupt figures by working at a restaurant run by the foul-mouthed and mean spirited Queenie (Ashwini Kalsekar) where the baddies tend to flock. The film's final prolonged fight sequence - which utilizes all manner of kitchen utensils and pots and pans - is set in this restaurant, where the leaders of the Sovereign Party - a MAGA-type group that oppresses the city's trans inhabitants, Muslims, and the poor - are holding a pre-election banquet.

For a first time director, Patel does a decent job at crafting a tense and kinetic action picture. That being said, it's not without its flaws. The fight scenes have a near-frantic nature and there are multiple scenes in which the Kid is fleeing from crowds of villains. The camera work is herky jerky almost to the point where it's difficult to see who's doing what. Also, while the film has a mythologizing element, from its use of the Hanuman legend to the mysteries surrounding the Kid's personality and background, we learn little other than that his mother was wronged and that he's pretty pissed off.

As a result, "Monkey Man" isn't quite on the level of some of the films it's mimicking - namely, the "John Wick" movies - but it's better than some other obvious influences (the overrated "The Raid" pictures). Patel is a fine actor and has talent behind the camera, but I'm hoping next time he tackles something that feels a little less like a mishmash of influences from other genre movies.

Review: Late Night With The Devil

Image courtesy of IFC Films.

The low-budget horror movie throwback "Late Night with the Devil" is three-quarters of a decent piece of schlock that overstays its welcome and, ultimately, ends on a note that isn't altogether satisfying. That said, this is a gimmick movie that remains compelling and has an ever-present tension that is impressively maintained for most of its running time. 

The gimmick here is that the film's story unfolds in real time during the taping of a 1977 episode of a late night talk show featuring a host who has long dreamed of making it to the big time, but that goal has always been just out of reach. The film is in color during the scenes that are live on the air and in black and white during commercial breaks as the show's crew works behind the scenes.

We get a bit of back story upfront: Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian) is a rival to Johnny Carson in the 1970s but his late-night show, "Night Owls," never poses a real threat to Carson's numbers. His viewership begin to lag and his wife develops cancer, which ultimately claims her life. 

Desperate to ensure that his show survives, Delroy plans a Halloween special that is stocked with kooky characters - a psychic named Christou (Fayssal Bazzi) who gets a disturbingly strong reading from someone in the crowd, a debunker named Carmichael the Conjurer (Ian Bliss) who agrees to be on the show to explain how all of the other guests are scammers, a parapsychologist named Dr. June (Laura Gordon) who appears to be having an affair with Delroy, and her subject, a young girl named Lily (Ingrid Torelli), the only survivor of a cult's mass suicide who is alleged to be possessed by a demonic entity known as Abraxas.

To his credit, Dastmalchian is believable as the smarmy talk show host who remains on as long as the cameras are running and appears to be scheming whenever they're not. One of the film's flaws is an allusion to his possible dealings with a cult-like celebrity group that never is explained enough to be interesting or provide any insight into Delroy's character. 

The film plays like a found footage film, albeit one shot with professional cameras in front of a live audience, rather than the grainy digital types to which we've become accustomed. Much of the film involves playing to expectations - for example, Christou's bad vibes he gets in the audience obviously portend something sinister to come. There is also one prominent red herring in the film involving an audience member.

Once the focus is on Dr. June and Lily, the film takes on a much creepier tone. There's nothing here you haven't seen before in countless exorcism films, but the culmination of the demon within Lily being pestered is more sturm und drang than I was expecting. Had the film ended there, "Late Night with the Devil" might have been a tighter picture. But it continues on after the Lily melee and, as a result, it's a weaker film for it.

Even if "Late Night" doesn't quite stick the landing, there are a number of things it gets right. As mentioned, Dastmalchian does a good job with this character, even if Delroy isn't developed as much as one might have liked. The film also gets the vibe of the era, even if some of the antics on the show aren't, perhaps, in line with late night talk shows of that time period. Although far from perfect, "Late Night with the Devil" is an often amusing and brief horror movie that fans of the genre will likely want to seek out.

Review: Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

Image courtesy of Sony Pictures.

As far as nostalgia-heavy sequels that bank upon the fond memories of their audiences to rake in more money go, you could do far worse than "Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire," yet another attempt to cash in on the 1984 comedy classic. The film is, of course, nowhere near as good as Ivan Reitman's original picture, but as far as these things go, there's some moderate fun to be had here.

The Spengler family - who are thankfully no longer being visited by a digitally-recreated Harold Ramis - has moved from Oklahoma to New York City, where they've taken over the firehouse that serves as Ghostbusters headquarters. They continue to catch unruly spirits, but have found themselves on the wrong side of the mayor (William Atherton, whose character has gone from the condescending EPA agent to the cranky top official of New York City).

Phoebe (Mckenna Grace) finds herself booted off the team after the mayor points out that she's underage, so she's left to her own devices, which leads to her befriending a ghost (Emily Alyn Lind) who is stuck in purgatory. Without giving too much away, their friendship leads to a dangerous artifact handed to Dan Aykroyd's Ray Stantz by a character portrayed by Kumail Nanjiani - whose family was tasked with being "fire masters" to prevent an ancient demon from rising and turning everything in its path into ice - releasing the demon on the city.

It is up to the Spengler family and the older Ghostbusters (Ernie Hudson returns as Zeddemore, Annie Potts is back as sarcastic Janine, and Bill Murray has a few walk-on scenes as Venkman) to prevent the demon from releasing the thousands of ghosts that the Ghostbusters have stored in the firehouse's wall over the years and creating an undead army.

One of the problems with "Frozen Empire" is that there are too many subplots - Phoebe's friendship with the ghost could have used more screen time, while the thread involving Nanjiani's relatives could have used less, despite the actor providing many of the film's funnier quips - and entirely too many secondary characters.

On the other hand, there are a number of MVPs in this film - Rudd provides some laughs and pathos as Gary, Phoebe's science teacher who is now involved with Carrie Coons' Callie Spengler; Grace shines as Phoebe; Nanjiani is pretty funny; Patton Oswalt has a solid cameo, and Aykroyd gets the most to do of the legacy cast.

Trotting out new "Ghostbusters" sequels every so often isn't really necessary, although it's more watchable than many of the other franchises that return to the well again and again. The original 1984 film is by far the best of the bunch, the 2016 reboot was better than most people gave it credit for at the time, and all of the other sequels have been varying shades of not bad. 

This fifth entry doesn't lay into the nostalgia factor nearly as hard as the one before it, but there are still a number of call-backs - Slimer makes an appearance and there's a mini army of marshmallow men. The film doesn't really do anything new and its plot involving the demon being unleashed on the world is fairly substandard. But the film also asks us to spend time with a group of talented and likable people, and that's what makes this expensive-looking blockbuster occasionally work. As I said, you could do far worse.

Review: Love Lies Bleeding

Image courtesy of A24.

Being well made isn't necessarily the same thing as being good, and that's a distinction with which I had to wrestle when considering my feelings toward Rose Glass's "Love Lies Bleeding," a well-made movie that I admired a little more than I liked. In the end, I'd say that I could recommend the movie, which has much going for it, even if the experience of watching it wasn't always particularly pleasant.

The film is set in the late 1980s in a remote New Mexico town, where we first meet gym manager Lou (Kristen Stewart) cleaning out the nastiest cinematic toilet since "Trainspotting." It's the first of many messes she'll find herself cleaning during the course of the picture and only the first example of a scene in the film that nearly set my gag reflex in motion.

Lou meets and quickly becomes enamored with Jackie (Katy O'Brian), a newcomer to town from Oklahoma who's passing through on her way to Las Vegas, where she intends to take part in a bodybuilding competition. Jackie is jacked, partly due to her rigorous workout schedule, but also because of the steroids with which she's pumping herself. "Love Lies Bleeding" has the most evocative sound design since the recent "The Zone of Interest," in that every muscle flex or vein popping - not to mention some squishing while dealing with corpses - is reflected nauseatingly on the soundtrack.

Lou has a background that only slowly reveals itself to Jackie, who gets a job at a local gun range, which is run by the creepy Lou Sr. (Ed Harris), Lou's father, who is a local criminal extraordinaire, and whose wife's disappearance is never really explained - but, well, you can probably guess. Lou is troubled that her sister (Jena Malone) is abused by her ne'er-do-well husband JJ (Dave Franco, whose mullet is only the second worst haircut in the picture after Harris' insanely bad one), and Jackie takes note of this.

Soon, Lou and Jackie strike up a relationship, Jackie moves in, and some semi-explicit sex scenes ensue. Meanwhile, JJ takes it one step too far one night and - not to spoil anything here, but... - Jackie takes matters into her own hands, leading to another gag reflex-triggering moment. This leads to a downward spiral involving the police, another young woman who engages in sexual blackmail with Lou after witnessing her and Jackie driving JJ's car in the middle of the night, and Jackie's bodybuilding contest freakout in Las Vegas.

Glass's first film, "Saint Maud," was a religious-themed thriller that sometimes felt like a body horror movie. "Love Lies Bleeding" falls into that same category. Anyone who ever might have thought of using steroids will likely take a pass after watching this picture. Jackie's muscles flex to the point where they seem they might burst at any given moment, and her clear case of roid-rage is outright scary.

The film's eerie nighttime shots and electronic score, blended with its neo-noir trappings and neon-lit atmosphere, reminded me slightly of Nicolas Winding Refn's "Drive," although the film that seems to have inspired much of "Love Lies Bleeding" is David Lynch's freaky "Lost Highway," from the nighttime shots of the highway flying by in the darkness, the creepy scenes in the desert, and even a gruesome death-by-table sequence that feels like a shoutout to the one in Lynch's film.

There's also a similarity to Lynch's film - in which one character literally becomes another halfway through the picture - in that character's pasts and true selves are hidden within the shadows of the night, during which much of Glass's film is set.

So, while "Love Lies Bleeding" isn't a film that's always enjoyable in the traditional sense - it's grim, grimy, and occasionally visually unpleasant - it's a film with much to admire, from the performances (Stewart's Lou is tightly coiled, while O'Brian is outright explosive and Harris is the scariest I've ever seen him) to its stylish visuals and dark sense of humor. One's enjoyment might be determined by how much one can relate to characters whose behavior often veers into the sociopathic and how much one's stomach can take by the grotesque imagery, but "Love Lies Bleeding" is, if nothing else, memorable.