"Top Ten" List - #4

 4. The Surprises

These are movies that, for various reasons, I didn’t expect much from going in but which ended up impressing me greatly.

The Batman

I’ve had superhero fatigue for a while now, and it’s also been a while since I’ve been very interested in Batman. I’m not even as in love with the Nolan films as others. So imagine my surprise at being very much into Matt Reeves’s THE BATMAN. It’s dark and gritty but still very much a heightened comic book-style reality. Nolan’s movies always struck me as if they were embarrassed of where they came from and were trying incredibly hard to *not* be comic book movies. And honestly, the more grounded you make Gotham, the less it feels like you need a costumed vigilante and the more appropriate things like government reform and task forces sound. I think Robert Pattinson makes a pretty great emo Batman, though (we don’t really see enough of his Bruce Wayne for me to have an opinion on that). This movie’s Gotham is like Westeros – it feels like you can’t even take two steps out of your door without getting bruised. The color palette here is largely very bleak with lots of black, gray and green, which would normally annoy me, but I like it here because it makes the rare splashes of color pop so much more and mean so much more. Especially in perhaps the greatest scene – certainly the most iconic visual in the movie (to me, at least) – where Batman leads a group of people to safety and the screen is absolutely saturated in red, which is used in a way I’ve never seen (hopeful, not horrific) and which kind of overwhelmed me. I’m excited to see another film in this particular cinematic universe. This movie also has easily the best car chase of any movie this year. (Available on HBOMax and Amazon Prime, and to rent on other streaming services.)

Beast

First off, I desperately want to double feature this movie with ROAR, a movie that is meant to be a touching story about a family living with big cats but which plays like a horror movie. I also want to show that movie to people who complained that all the animals here are CGI -- dudes, you don't even know how much better that is for EVERYONE, including/especially the animals. BEAST knows exactly what kind of movie it is, and while it is *also* a touching family story about a widowed father trying to reconnect with his daughters, it is also an incredibly tense and well done thriller. This is honestly one of my favorite Idris Elba performances, at least partly because it doesn’t feel like an advertisement for how cool and sexy he is. I don’t need to be sold on that; I don’t think anyone does. His character is not doing great as a dad, and his daughters are alternately embarrassed by and resentful of him. But this family experiences a real crucible in the form of a safari trip that turns terrifying when they are attacked by a lion that has gone rogue after poachers killed most of his pride. Sharlto Copley is great in a crucial supporting role, and the actors playing the daughters are impressive as well. I love that the family has real issues before they’re even in the biggest struggle of the film and that that doesn’t just disappear when shit gets real. They come together to help each other survive this ordeal, sure, but you never get the sense that, oh well, everything’s okay now and they don’t have those issues anymore. They certainly do, but what’s different by the end is that the dad has proven – in the most intense way imaginable – that he is willing to fight to hold his family together. (Available on Peacock and to rent on other streaming services.)

Blood Relatives

I’ve seen a lot of vampire movies and a lot of road movies and a lot of father-daughter stories. And the description of the movie made it sound a bit more saccharine and heartwarming than I usually care for. I love, then, that this movie doesn’t really traffic in sentimentality. It’s kind of PAPER MOON  meets NEAR DARK, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. Longtime Rian Johnson collaborator Noah Segan (he plays the stoner guest in GLASS ONION) directs and also plays the main character, Francis – a vampire and a drifter, who can’t stay long in one place because of his particular diet. He is approached by a girl named Jane, who tells him she is his daughter (from a previous relationship with a non-vampire woman), and we soon learn that she is both vampire and human. She needs to drink blood but she’s not as affected by sunlight and, unlike full-fledged vamps like Francis, she ages. The relationship dynamics here are excellent, as Francis struggles with what it would mean to let this girl be a part of his life (or let himself be a part of hers). I especially loved Jane’s clear-eyed vision of the future, in which they’ll have to play these various roles for society as she ages and he doesn’t. This was great, and I was excited by the prospect of seeing more of this world and these characters (Segan in the Q&A at Fantastic Fest suggested a sequel called “Dracula: Dad and Loving It”). (Available on Shudder and to rent on other streaming services.)

Bodies Bodies Bodies

At a time where most slasher movies are either tired retreads of the classic formula or tired “clever twists” on said formula – with characters that aren’t nearly as interesting or fun as their 70s and 80s forbears – this movie was a breath of fresh air. It’s also a refreshing take on Gen Z in that it doesn’t feel condescending or like it was made by some Old who just doesn’t understand. It revolves around a group of barely twentysomethings who have gathered at the huge house of one of their parents for a hurricane party. There’s your standard insufferable and/or punchable young’uns but there’s also a 40-something Lee Pace sticking out like a sore thumb as the much older boyfriend of one of the young women, and he’s actually the most likable character (to me, but I’m also an Old, so what do I know). Another odd person out in this group is Bee (played by BORAT 2’s Maria Bakalova), who was brought by her girlfriend (played by HUNGER GAMES’s Amandla Stenberg) and who is kind of the audience surrogate. The group decide to play “Bodies Bodies Bodies,” a whodunit game that most viewers will have played some iteration of, perhaps by another name, in their youth. Things get horror-flavored when people actually start dying all over the house, but to say more would be serious spoiler territory. This is really well written, with dialogue that feels fresh from a Twitter thread. The performances are all pretty great (Rachel Sennott is the MVP -- her rant about how hard podcasting is floored me). And I was especially impressed with the lighting, which gets dark when necessary but not prohibitively dark and makes excellent use of what the characters already have on them (cell phones with flashlights, Rachel Sennott’s glow stick necklaces). If you’re looking for a slasher that’s a little different and has a more modern sensibility, I highly recommend it. (Available to rent on streaming services.)

Final Cut

It’s a remake of one of my favorite horror movies of the past decade. The original is perfect, and this should have been a disaster. I fully expected it to be. It’s a French remake, directed by Michel Hazanavicius (who directed the 2011 Best Picture winner, THE ARTIST). I’d seen one of his Bond spoofs, so I felt pretty confident that he’d be able to navigate the comedy end of things. The plot stays very close to that of the original – too close, it seems in the first half, since the plot of the movie-within-the-movie is almost identical to the Japanese version, even down to the Japanese character names. But like the original, everything has a purpose and nothing whatsoever is wasted. I didn’t like this as much as the original, but I was very surprised at how good it turned out to be. Some of the emotional beats, while different, managed to affect me as much as the original (the human scaffolding at the end was a bit different in context, but still wiped me out). If you can only see one of them, I’d recommend the original, but this is actually quite good. (Not yet released.)

Fire Island

Just when I thought we’d been through all the permutations of Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice, Joel Booster Kim comes along and parlays the novel into a gay romcom. I love that this movie takes all the tropes and plot points from the novel that we’re expecting but doesn’t make it such a cookie cutter find-and-replace exercise that things feel shoehorned in. There are maybe one or two things that feel a bit forced, but this far out from watching the movie, I can’t even remember what they are. This movie handles the differences between gay love stories and straight love stories more successfully, I think, than BROS does – particularly in its discarding of the “marriage ending” (because dude, these guys have only known each other a week). Yet it still manages to be heartwarming and romantic. Conrad Ricamora makes a great addition to the Darcy pantheon and Margaret Cho as the movie’s Mrs. Bennett is inspired. It’s just done so well and has such a specific setting that’s hilariously and irreverently analogous to Austen’s marriage market. I think my only real problem is that I still feel like the casting of this movie’s Lydia and Kitty is backwards. (Available on Hulu.)

Hellraiser (2022)

Yet another Fantastic Fest movie (the second of the two secret screenings), and this was a ton of fun. I love the first two Hellraiser movies, have a bemused not-quite-fondness for the third, and haven’t trudged into the bajillion other sequels. But I have a fair amount of familiarity with the basics of Hellraiser and the Cenobites. I really dug this and I feel confident nodding in agreement with people who are way more conversant in this canon than I am and who think this is the best Hellraiser movie since the second one. There’s a really good story here, with our final girl being a troubled woman who’s struggling to kick a drug habit, as well as trying to save her brother. And her conflict with the Cenobites and the puzzle box are a great way of dramatizing her issues with addiction and the pain in her life. Jamie Clayton makes a fabulous new Pinhead, so much so that she apparently inspired Clive Barker to write a new story revolving around her. The Cenobites look amazing. I’ve seen complaints about the loss of the leather, but the director said they were trying to move away from the black leather look (which felt very taboo in 1987 but not so much nowadays) and decided to let the Cenobites be their own leather. My favorite thing about this new movie, though, is that for the first time I really felt like I had a handle on what the puzzle box was and what it could do. And I love that the things the Cenobites are supposed to give people – things people think they want, like pleasure and power – are never what the wishmakers expect, but instead the Cenobites’s hellish version of those things. (Available on Hulu.)

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

Like most people, I found Jenny Slate’s “Marcel” voice utterly adorable, but I wondered how the short YouTube videos that originally established this character could be made into a tolerable feature-length movie. But this turned out to be pretty great. I loved all the little devices and processes Marcel and Connie use to get around the house and do things. I like the tone of the movie and that it’s not too precious (especially when Marcel posts a video asking for help in finding his family and is annoyed that most of the comments just talk about how cute he is). The story itself is a fairly basic against-all-odds destiny quest story, but the details and voice performances are what really make the movie sing. Marcel has a little monologue about being at a party and feeling overwhelmed, and I swear I have never felt more seen by a stop-motion shell in my life. (Available to rent on streaming services.)

Resurrection

If you haven’t yet jumped on the Rebecca Hall train, it’s beyond time to rectify that. She elevates every single thing she’s in, and her directorial debut (last year’s PASSING) was one of the best movies of 2021. I’m not always a fan of movies where none of the horror (or anything supernatural or magic, for that matter) is actually real, which is why I was slow to warm to this. But to this movie’s credit, it never tries to fool you. You know almost from the first moments of the film that Margaret has had to deal with some psychological trauma, otherwise she wouldn’t give such convincing advice to the young woman who confides in her. And not very long at all after Margaret’s ex David comes into the picture, we know that trauma involves some heavy duty gaslighting. We don’t get any flashbacks to what happened, which means we only have the characters’ own accounts to go on, which yes, probably was better for the film’s budget, but also puts us squarely in Margaret’s shoes (there’s a joke here about the barefoot thing, but I’m too classy to make it :P). She can’t tell what’s true and what’s not, and neither can we. This was pretty remarkable, and yet another astonishing performance from Rebecca Hall. (Available on Shudder and to rent on streaming services.)

Spirited

I went to a mystery screening in early November and it turned out to be this. I hate walking out on movies, but I just can’t watch Christmas movies *that far* from December. So I caught up with it the week of Christmas, not hoping for much (I’m not as in love with Pasek and Paul as others are), but wow, this is a new holiday favorite. There are LOADS of adaptations of “A Christmas Carol,” many of them “clever twists” on the story, but this is the first one I’ve seen since that episode of Doctor Who that truly earned that description. You think you know how this one is going to play the Dickens tropes, but it has some real surprises up its sleeve. Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds are predictably great together, and I love seeing Octavia Spencer playing a love interest, which I don’t think she’s ever done before. Most of the songs are quite good – some of them very heartstring-tuggy – but the best by far is “Good Afternoon,” which I want to watch about a hundred more times. (Available on AppleTV.)

Terrifier 2

This was perhaps the biggest surprise of all of these films. I had no real knowledge or curiosity about it until it screened at Fantastic Fest and was a huge hit both there and in its theatrical release. I spent a few weeks watching reviews of and reactions to the original movie, and I was pretty convinced that it was just too much for me. But I kept hearing about this sequel and what a blast it was with an audience and decided that I’d seen enough of the original through the reactions and reviews to understand what I needed to going into the sequel without watching the first one. So I went to see it. And yes, it is extreme. But it’s also a ton of fun. I did eventually see the original, which was exactly as traumatizing (no more, no less) than I was expecting, but it’s more a proof of concept than a movie. The sequel takes things up several notches in every area. The acting is stronger, the character work is stronger, there’s an actual story rather than just a series of kills, the score is on a whole other level, and the gore is stronger and even more creative. (I agree that the bedroom scene is more violent and bloody than the hacksaw scene in the original, but the hacksaw scene – along with the, um, “wig” scene? – has a layer of something else that’s more upsetting to me than anything in the sequel.) I love the mythology being set up here, but my one complaint is that it is way too long, and that being so long, there’s no excuse not to give us a bit more to go on with the mythology and backstories. Still, I liked it far more than I expected to. (Available to rent on streaming services.)