The Grouchy Editor

There are two bars for horror movies:  an overall bar, which is pretty damn high thanks to a string of classics that began in 1968 with Rosemary’s Baby and Night of the Living Dead and continued throughout the 1970s, and a more recent bar, which is pretty damn low.  It Follows doesn’t come close to the horror heights of those ’70s classics, but because of its ominous tone and a few memorable scenes, it’s a notch above most contemporary fright flicks.

Another reason It Follows is better than 99 percent of recent horror is that it actually shows respect – for the audience and for the genre itself. Writer-director David Robert Mitchell cares about what he puts on screen, and his attention to detail is rewarding.  Mitchell’s story is just as silly as what we usually get in horror, but he presents it with skill and panache.

We are introduced to Jay (Maika Monroe), a morose young woman with morose young friends. (The default emotional state for all of the young people in this movie is morose. Do young people really sit around in dark living rooms, rarely speaking to each other and instead glued to crappy 1950s science-fiction flicks on TV? I have no idea, but these kids do.)  Jay goes out on a date with a handsome young man, and then we discover the threat in It Follows – a mysterious malady in which people have sex and  then get stalked by “it.” This unsettling state of affairs continues until the victim has sex with someone else, at which point … oh, never mind.  Suffice to say that director Mitchell outshines screenwriter Mitchell.

When the … uh, let’s call it an evil “presence” … gets to be too much for Jay, she finds refuge on a swing-set in the middle of a deserted, spooky playground, or by sleeping on the hood of her car. In sympathy for Jay, her morose friends become even more morose.  Eventually, our gang of heroes comes up with a foolproof way to battle the stalking menace, a solution that involves a swimming pool, irons, TVs, and other electrical appliances. But of course.  It’s a climax that’s certainly “different.” It’s a climax that’s also certifiably dumb.

There are a few scary scenes and several disturbing images in It Follows. Who’d have thought that a lone figure simply shuffling toward the camera out of a crowd of extras could be so unnerving? The eerie musical score has garnered comparisons to John Carpenter’s famous keyboards in Halloween, but it reminded me more of the bizarro score created by Goblin for Suspiria.

So what, exactly, is the “it” that follows? I have no clue, but it does involve the scariest thing on Earth:  naked old people. In this movie, young people have sex with most of their clothes on, while old people go full monty. So on second thought, maybe it really is a horror classic.    Grade:  B

Director:  David Robert Mitchell   Cast:  Maika Monroe, Keir Gilchrist, Olivia Luccardi, Lili Sepe, Daniel Zovatto, Jake Weary, Bailey Spry, Debbie Williams, Ruby Harris, Leisa Pulido  Release:  2015

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Wild Tales starts out with a bang (literally) and ends with a bang (metaphorically).  What comes in between is kind of hard to describe: a South American take on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, I guess.  The movie is a twisted anthology of six tales about anger, frustration, and revenge.  Hell hath no fury like some of the wronged characters in Tales.

Writer/director Damian Szifron taps into everyday situations where people butt heads – everything from road rage to infidelity – and then says, “What if … ?”  The results range in quality, but each story is imaginative, and a couple of them are flat-out brilliant.

My take on each of the six short films:

“Pasternak” –  Passengers on an airplane learn to their dismay that someone’s been boning up on his Agatha Christie — specifically the plot of And Then There Were None.  This is the funniest segment in the film, inspired lunacy with a great twist at the end and an even better final shot.   A

“The Rats” –  A cook and a waitress at a roadside diner decide to add an extra item to the menu when an obnoxious customer shows up at their restaurant.  The plot isn’t much, but Rita Cortese steals the show as a Julia Child from hell.   B

“The Strongest” – Tales drops the “comedy” from “black comedy” as a simple incident of road rage escalates into a chilling, horrific battle for survival.  It’s what you might have gotten if Spielberg’s Duel had gone on for an extra 15 minutes.   B+

“Little Bomb” –  Argentinean superstar Ricardo Darin plays a demolitions expert who doesn’t take kindly to life’s little slights, in particular the fact that his car keeps getting towed from no-parking zones.  Darin is a great actor, but this is the weakest entry in the movie.   B

“The Proposal” –  Again, there isn’t much to laugh about in this grim entry detailing the consequences when a rich kid’s parents attempt to shift blame for a deadly hit-and-run from their son to a penniless employee.    B

“Until Death Do Us Part” –  All hell breaks loose at a wedding when a pampered Bridezilla discovers that her betrothed isn’t all that she thought he was.  If nuptials were always this absurdly entertaining, I’d become a wedding crasher.   A-

Overall Grade:  B+

Director:  Damian Szifron   Cast:  Ricardo Darin, Oscar Martinez, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Erica Rivas, Rita Cortese, Julieta Zylberberg, Dario Grandinetti, Diego Gentile, Walter Donado   Release:  2014

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I checked my thesaurus to find antonyms for “subtle,” and here are some of the words that I found:  ignorant, stupid, harsh, noisy, open, and unsubtle.  Those adjectives certainly apply to Hit Team, a low-budget comedy about Ruthie and Max, two none-too-bright assassins on a tight deadline to bump off six unlucky targets in Los Angeles.

Here are a few more words to describe Hit Team:  vulgar, crude, and sophomoric.  But it’s also good-natured, energetic, and boasts winning chemistry among its large cast of goofballs — all of which go a long way to offset the fact that the neurons in your brain responsible for logic and deep thought might well implode as you watch this movie.

Hit Team knows that it’s stupid, even revels in it.  It’s Bugs Bunny with blood. 

Ruthie (Emerald Robinson) and Max (screenwriter Myles McLane) trade barbs while they cruise the streets of L.A., knocking off hapless victims and crossing names off their kill list.  Eventually, they draw the attention of two cops (Roger Payano and Anita Leeman), who are also remarkable dimwits.  There follows much gunplay, slapstick, and gratuitous shots of shapely Robinson and Leeman in their skin-tight black miniskirts.

With its frequent close-ups of the ladies’ derrieres and its fondness for adolescent humor, Hit Team is a throwback to moronic sex comedies of the 1970s and ’80s.  About the only thing missing is nudity – what’s up with that?  As one potential victim cries out as he drives away from Ruthie, who has just attempted to seduce him by stripping to her bra and panties, “Show some more skin next time!”

There’s a fine line between dumb that’s endearing, and dumb that’s annoying.  Hit Team goes back and forth across that line.  But the actors have charm, there are some standout clowns in supporting roles, and those ladies are awfully easy on the eyes.       Grade:  C+

Director:  Mark Newton  Cast:  Myles McLane, Emerald Robinson, Roger Payano, Anita Leeman, Douglas Macpherson, Melanie Camp, Lori Quintanilla, Isaac Cheung   Release:  2014  (available at YouTube)

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