The third story, “Suicide Club,” is the odd one out. It has only two characters: William (Alexander Polinsky) and Jack (Jason Marsden). William is about to jump off the roof of a building when Jack stops him to engage in a brief conversation. Jack’s motives are unclear, but it seems he wants to help William, although not in the way William might think. This is also the only short that doesn’t actually have a locker in it, or really any transition into the short, other than a fade in to a shot of two street signs informing the audience this takes place at the corner of 13th & Locker streets.
The fourth segment, “The Author,” stars Rick Hoffman as Armando, a hit man who keeps notes for his memoirs by chatting into a micro cassette recorder, and who has three women chained to a wall in what appears to be an abandoned loft. One of the three women hired Armando to kill Harvey (Thomas Calabro), but because they carefully disguised their voice, Armando is not sure which one it is: Patricia (Krista Allen), Harvey’s wife; Rachel (Marina Benedict), Harvey’s mistress; or Marcia (Carmen Perez), Harvey’s assistant. Armando dictates notes as he plies the women for information, but he might get more than he bargained for before the night is over.
At this point, we return to the wraparound story, “The Other Side.” Archie leaves Skip to his work with one final note: Skip is not to clean or even touch Archie’s locker, #13. It’s battered and filthy, but Archie is very clear that Skip should leave it alone. Skip naturally ignores Archie’s warning and finds the locker completely empty, but some time later while cleaning the locker room he hears an odd sound coming from Locker 13. When he opens it to find out what’s making the noise, he finds something that just might change his luck.
So what does this all add up to? Well, Locker 13’s segments are mostly pretty slick, although the difference in production quality between “Suicide Club” and the rest of the stories is pretty huge. Each short was directed by a different filmmaker, but interestingly, they all feel fairly similar. If the intent was to give the film as a whole a coherent voice, it certainly worked, although this adherence to a similar look and feel may work against the filmmakers’ individual strengths. The quality of the shorts is about the same across the board, although certain ones have different points that stand out: Ricky Schroder’s performance in “Down and Out” is actually very good, although he doesn’t have much time to work with. “The Byzantine Order” has a few good gags and probably the strongest ensemble. “Suicide Club” lands in pretty familiar territory and frankly feels like a one-act play that has been ported over into a short, and “The Author” leans too hard on pointless cruelty to be enjoyable. Wrapping things up, “The Other Side” just doesn’t make all that much sense at the end.
With its mostly slick production and a few good entries, Locker 13 could be a reasonable way to pass the time if it pops up on cable. It’s tough to recommend as something to seek out, though, as even at its best it feels very familiar and at its worst it can feel flat-out tired. Still, it piques interest in the individual filmmakers, and if that was part of the reason behind the production of Locker 13, mission accomplished.
A Lonely Place to Die (2011)
Originally published on Film Monthly 20 March 2012
It’s always exciting to see places that you’ve rarely (if ever) seen before in a film, and before the opening credits of A Lonely Place to Die are done rolling, the audience has already been given a gorgeous introduction to the Scottish highlands. And before the credits even start rolling, we’ve had an uncomfortable look at them upside down, from the perspective of someone hanging by a climbing rope. While the film’s setup is something we’ve seen before– a group of friends go hiking in a remote area and encounter something they’re not prepared for– once the action begins in earnest, A Lonely Place to Die is an unpredictable ride.
Experienced mountain climbers Alison (Melissa George) and Rob (Alec Newman) are preparing for a weekend hike in the highlands with their young friend Ed (Ed Speelers) and couple Andy (Eamonn Walker) and Jenny (Kate Magowan). After resting a night in a cabin, they set out on their climb, but during a break for a meal, Ed wanders off a bit and hears an odd sound echoing. The group is compelled to investigate, and are shocked to discover a plastic pipe acting as an air hole leading to a large wooden box buried in the ground, inside of which is a terrified young girl, Anna (Holly Boyd), who doesn’t speak English.
Once Jenny coaxes Anna out of the box, the group is faced with a problem: their location is remote, to say the least, with the closest village several miles away. Rob and Alison take off on a direct route to the village that requires a dangerous climb, while the others take Anna and start going the long way around. Unfortunately, the men who put Anna in the ground are not far away, and the friends soon find themselves in a race for their lives and to save Anna from her vicious kidnappers, while also facing a rather inhospitable terrain that presents its own inherent dangers.
Like the recent Israeli film Rabies, A Lonely Place to Die starts in a familiar place and goes in a very different direction from what viewers might expect. Director Julian Gilbey uses the beautiful locations to maximum effect, making them both inviting to look at and unmistakably dangerous. As the film progresses, more players are introduced into the action, including a ransom dispatch team led by Darko (Karel Roden), an employee of Anna’s father. Gilbey deftly moves between the friends trying to save Anna, the kidnappers, and the ransom team, leading the three main strands to tie together in a breathless final act.
Melissa George is becoming something of a staple of solid genre cinema from the UK after this and Christopher Smith’s brilliant Triangle. She delivers another strong performance in a demanding role here, backed by an able supporting cast. Especially notable is Ed Speelers, who gives what could have been a one-dimensional frat-boy character a nice depth as the film progresses. A Lonely Place to Die is a unique take on the survival action/adventure film, with interesting characters and more than its share of effective white-knuckle suspense.
Lovely Molly (2011)
Originally published on Film Monthly 29 August 2012
Eduardo Sánchez makes a bold decision at the very beginning of his new film, Lovely Molly: it opens with Molly (Gretchen Lodge) speaking into a home video camera, and from there it segues into home movie footage of Molly’s wedding to Tim (Johnny Lewis). Sánchez was one of the co-directors of the massively influential film The Blair Witch Project, and audiences may be surprised to see this film at least partially returning to the “found footage” concept that film helped to turn into a popular horror subgenre. However, once our characters have been established, Lovely Molly moves away from the “found footage” style and into an unsettling character study.
After their wedding, Molly and Tim move into the house where Molly and her sister Hannah (Alexandra Holden) grew up. Tim is a truck driver, often leaving Molly at home by herself while he makes long runs. After the couple have lived in the house for a few months, strange events begin to occur: their alarm system goes off after a door is opened without any sign of forced entry, and soon after Molly starts hearing voices in the house. Convinced that something strange is happening, Molly begins shooting with her video camera around the house in hopes of catching the sounds or something else in order to prove these things aren’t in her head. When Tim returns home from a run to find Molly sitting nude and nearly catatonic in her childhood bedroom, things take a turn for the worse.
Lovely Molly takes a much different approach than other recent possession/exorcism films, to which it does bear some similarity. As more of Molly’s history is revealed, what is happening to her becomes less clear. There are hints that her erratic behavior may be tied to mysterious symbols found in a dark pit in a shed on the house’s property, but it seems just as likely that she may simply be succumbing once again to a recurring drug abuse problem. The film occasionally switches back to footage from Molly’s camera, which is benign and dull at the beginning but soon becomes unsettling, particularly when Molly begins filming her neighbors
. The uncertainty of Molly’s motives makes these scenes some of the most disturbing scenes of any horror film in recent memory.
Huge credit also has to go to lead Gretchen Lodge as Molly, though– her performance is alternately sympathetic and terrifying. She is in virtually every shot of the film that isn’t presented through her camera, and she is fantastic. Co-writers Sánchez and Jamie Nash smartly leave many questions unanswered while teasing more and more unpleasant possibilities for Molly’s descent, and Lodge’s excellent performance makes it truly sad to watch as Molly unravels, regardless of the cause. Lovely Molly is often tough to watch, but it’s well worth the effort.
Madison County (2011)
Originally published on Film Monthly 8 May 2012
Another group of college kids take another road trip to another remote, unfriendly rural location where the locals act suspicious and then the kids get knocked off by an insane redneck killer in writer/director Eric England’s feature film debut, Madison County. Honestly, the release of this film could not have been timed much worse after the release of Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard’s The Cabin in the Woods, given that Madison County is exactly the sort of film Cabin expertly skewers. England tries to inject some mystery into the motives behind what drives the kids to the titular Madison County, but it really doesn’t matter– there is nothing here that horror fans haven’t seen countless times before.
James (Colley Bailey) is a grad student who has decided to write his thesis on a book he discovered called Devil in the Woods, a supposedly true account of mass murder in rural Madison County perpetrated by a man named Damien. James has been writing back and forth with the book’s author and decides to visit Madison County himself to find out whether the story is true and what the locals think of the story and the book. Along for the ride is Jenna (Natalie Scheetz), James’s longtime crush, his best friend Will (Matt Mercer), who has offered to take pictures to accompany the thesis, Will’s secret girlfriend Brooke (Joanna Sotomura), and Brooke’s older brother Kyle (Ace Merrero) who has been sent to make sure Will behaves himself. Kyle is obviously very unhappy about babysitting and wasting the weekend, and it would seem like a good idea for Brooke to just tell him about her and Will’s relationship so he could stay home instead of trying to hide it from him all weekend, but then we would have one less city boy to get killed.
The group arrives in Madison County and is told by a nice old lady working in a diner that the author of the book moved away years ago and that the book’s story about the killing spree is a local legend. She gives James directions to the author’s house, but when they arrive there is no one home, although the house seems to be recently vacated. At this point, the film has already burned through about half its running time, and it’s starting to look like maybe it will actually be the story of five kids who drive to the country, meet some creepy locals, and then just go home. A few minutes later, though, one of the kids finally gets killed (at 46 minutes of 81 total, including end credits) and the film settles into traditional stalk ‘n slash with young folks running around in the woods being chased by a murderer wearing a pig’s head for a mask. The killer is played by Nick Principe, who also played Chromeskull in the Laid to Rest films. The makeup and effects in Madison County were done by Almost Human, the effects house run by Laid to Rest director Robert Hall, giving horror fans hope that at least the kills in Madison County will be interesting.
This is not the case, though– despite the prominent “UNRATED” graphic on the cover of the DVD, there’s really nothing on the screen in Madison County that wouldn’t get passed with an “R” rating. And with that fact established, the last hope that Madison County will provide anything other than a competent, by-the-numbers slasher movie vanishes. England tries to generate some interest in a convoluted backstory about why the kids have been drawn to Madison County in the first place, but it’s far too little and way too late to make any difference. In even the best slasher films, the audience doesn’t care about why the kids are where they are, just about what happens to them. In this case, there’s not much interest on either count. There’s nothing particularly bad about Madison County, but there’s also nothing unique or interesting about it. There are worse ways to spend 81 minutes, but there are much better ones, too.
Magical Girl (2014)
Originally published on Film Monthly 22 April 22 2016
Noir can take many different forms, and even if on first glance Carlos Vermut’s Magical Girl does not seem to fit the bill, a little digging reveals its roots. Vermut’s debut feature Diamond Flash has never seen a stateside release, but this follow-up made big waves at film festivals all over the world including some here. Like another recent excellent feature from Spain, Damián Szifrón’s Wild Tales, Magical Girl uses an episodic structure but tells a very different kind of story although where it ends up is not far removed from where those wild tales wind up. Also like that film, the influence of Spanish film legend Pedro Almodóvar is evident here. The result is a fascinating, strange hybrid of mystery, revenge, and blackest comedy.
Young Alicia (Lucía Pollán) is dying and her father Luis (Luis Bermejo), an out-of-work teacher, is desperate to fulfill what may be one of her last wishes. Alicia and her friends are obsessed with Japanese culture to the point that they’ve given each other Japanese nicknames, and in particular Alicia loves the TV series Magical Girl Yokiro. Luis makes it his mission to buy Alicia a special dress created for the show’s anniversary, but being out of work he has few options. A few twists of fate lead him to cross paths with Barbara (Bárbara Lennie), an unstable woman whose husband keeps her in an apartment while he seems to live elsewhere. Luis plans to blackmail her, leading Barbara back into her old life and into the world of some dangerous characters in an attempt to get money to pay Luis without alerting her husband. And unfortunately for Luis, another figure from Barbara’s past is about to come back into the picture.
A couple of small hints give an idea of where some of Vermut’s inspiration for this film came from: a search engine called “Rampo” and the image of a black lizard that figures prominently into the story. “Edogawa Rampo” was the pen name of Tarō Hirai, under which he wrote mystery fiction heavily influenced by Edgar Allan Poe. One of Rampo’s stories, “The Black Lizard,” has been adapted in Japanese cinema multiple times including once by Kinji Fukusaku in 1968. While Fukusaku’s take on the story is probably the best known and defined by its garish camp, Magical Girl takes a much more subdued approach to both its mystery and its humor. Vermut sets the characters on paths to collide with each other and breaks the story into three parts, each one focusing on a different character as they become involved in an increasingly complicated situation. As in the best noir, much of the worst consequences that come down on its protagonists are clearly the direct result of some fundamental facet of their character.
Whether that is love, fear, or something else entirely is left open for interpretation. The cast is excellent, and Vermut uses them to shade in their characters far beyond what the viewer learns from their dialogue. He also presents their actions with an aloof precision that may strike some viewers as a bit too cold. In that sense, the thrillers of the Coen Brothers also feel like a distinctive influence here. Their flair for bleak deadpan humor is evident here in addition to their dedication to high technical standards. The result is a low-key but exhilarating thriller that touches on some subjects most filmmakers wouldn’t go anywhere near. Magical Girl is a fantastic discovery, and hopefully its release on home video here in the States will help it and its director find the audience they deserve.
The Magnetic Monster (1953)
Originally posted 8 February 2012
The name Curt Siodmak is no doubt familiar to fans of classic horror and sci-fi cinema, although perhaps not to many others. Siodmak may be best known for writing the original screenplay for Universal’s classic The Wolf Man, although his name appeared on a number of sci-fi and horror films both high-profile (Val Lewton’s I Walked with a Zombie) and low-
budget (Siodmak’s own directorial effort Bride of the Gorilla), as well as writing the repeatedly adapted novel Donovan’s Brain. The Magnetic Monster, released in 1953, is one of Siodmak’s few credits as director, and has gained something of a “lost classic” status since it has not been available in the U.S. on home video. MGM has now released the film as part of their Limited Edition Collection, finally allowing a new generation of film fans a look at a very unusual film.
Dr. Jeffrey Stewart (Richard Carlson), a scientist and agent for the Office of Scientific Investigation, is called to investigate an odd situation at a local housewares store where all the clocks have stopped and the electricity is not working. He discovers the entire place has become severely magnetized, and a wrecked laboratory on the second floor is emanating dangerous amounts of radioactivity. Before he knows it, Stewart and his partner Dr. Dan Forbes (King Donovan) are involved in a manhunt for a radioactive material on the loose– it’s so serious, Stewart even has to cancel dinner with his pregnant wife Connie (Jean Byron)!
Stewart and Forbes track down the rest of the radioactive material, in the hands of rogue scientist Howard Denker (Leonard Mudie). Denker has created a voracious radioactive element that needs constant electrical current or else it implodes and doubles in size every eleven hours. This “Magnetic Monster,” then, threatens to destroy the entire world if it is not quickly neutralized, pitting Stewart, Forbes and the O.S.I. in a race against the clock. Can they stop it in time? Will Connie Stewart ever gain weight so the Stewarts will have the “fat, sassy baby” Jeffrey wants?
The Unrepentant Cinephile Page 43