The Unrepentant Cinephile

by Jason Coffman

  Toni Erdmann (Germany, dir. Maren Ade)

  Following the death of his beloved dog Willie, Winfried (Peter Simonischek) decides to visit his successful daughter Ines (Sandra Hüller) to reconnect. But Ines is too busy and/or embarrassed to see him, stressed out from long hours and her own ambitions, so Winfried devises a scheme. He poses as a “life coach” named Toni Erdmann who wears a ridiculous wig and goofy teeth and insinuates himself into Ines’s business life, much to her initial panic and reluctant amusement. Toni Erdmann is utterly unique, a nearly three-hour German comedy/drama that genuinely hilarious and poignant. Simonischek is great as prankster Winfried/Toni, and the interaction between Toni and Ines’s co-workers and associates is masterfully acted. Sandra Hüller is spectacular, giving Ines a real arc culminating in a touching and funny musical number that is one of the most memorable scenes in any film this year.

  They Call Me Jeeg Robot (Italy, dir. Gabriele Mainetti)

  While on the run from the police for another petty theft, Enzo (Claudio Santamaria) accidentally dunks himself in a submerged barrel of toxic waste and emerges vomiting black liquid. A few days later, Enzo discovers that he has become nearly invincible and super strong after a drug deal he’s enlisted to help out with goes south. Unfortunately that drug deal has caused him to cross paths with the dangerously unstable Fabio (Luca Marinelli), and Enzo’s beautiful but traumatized neighbor Alessia (Ilenia Pastorelli) is caught in the middle. They Call Me Jeeg Robot is a superhero movie, but Enzo’s character would shame even the “bad guys” of Suicide Squad. A low-level criminal subsisting on vanilla pudding cups and watching porno DVDs all day, Enzo is highly unfit to be a superhero. He’s a mess, but Luca Marinelli’s Fabio is much, much worse as the villain Jared Leto was hoping to play as the Joker. Marinelli absolutely steals the show every time he’s on-screen. The film doesn’t shy away from presenting Enzo as a monster, but Santamaria invests him with a shred of humanity even at his worst. It’s a grimy, black-humored take on what has become a depressingly tired subgenre.

  Colossal (Canada, dir. Nacho Vigalondo)

  Alcoholic, unemployed writer Gloria (Anne Hathaway) is kicked out of the New York apartment she shares with her boyfriend Tim (Dan Stevens) after one too many all-night benders. She moves back upstate to her hometown into the house she grew up in, and her childhood friend Oscar (Jason Sudeikis) hires her to work part-time in the bar he inherited from his father. The next day, a giant reptilian monster appears in Seoul and stomps across part of the city. Gloria realizes that she is somehow responsible and has to make it right, but then the situation unexpectedly gets a lot more complicated. Colossal is a deft blend of low-key indie relationship drama and giant monster movie. Normally these two completely different styles would never work together, but writer/director Nacho Vigalondo cleverly points the story in directions that make the central conflict(s) of the film echo in unexpected ways. Hathaway gives a great performance acting against type, but Sudeikis steals the show in a part that is also considerably different than any he’s done before.

  After Colossal, I hopped a bus to the kaiju-themed closing night party held at the Millenium Youth Entertainment Complex in Austin. There was rollerskating, karaoke, a movie theater showing classic kaiju trailers, bowling, an arcade, and even life-size fighting robots. I won the tattoo lottery this year and got my first tattoo: a silver sphere from Phantasm. Shortly thereafter, my friend Aroon and I sang “All These Things That I’ve Done” by The Killers and Nacho Vigalondo went wild for it. I’m told there is a brief video of this floating around online, but I’ll leave that to you to find if you’re so inclined. Overall, my second year at Fantastic Fest was another incredible time and another high point in my life as a cinephile. I can’t wait for next year.

  Bruce Campbell’s Horror Film Festival 2016: Day 1

  Originally published on Daily Grindhouse

  2016 marks the third year for Bruce Campbell’s Horror Film Festival, held at the Rosemont Muvico as a part of the Wizard World comic convention. Each year has hosted local premieres and brought guests with horror classics and new films alike, and this year is no different. The 2016 fest is running from August 18th to the 21st, and the lineup is possibly their best yet.

  Don’t Breathe (USA, dir. Fede Alvarez, - Chicago Premiere)

  The opening film of this year’s fest was the Chicago premiere of Fede Alvarez’s follow-up to his Evil Dead remake, the home invasion thriller Don’t Breathe. Campbell himself came out to give a suitably epic introduction for Alvarez, who just said a few words before the screening began with the promise of an extra special surprise after the credits.

  Rocky (Jane Levy) has virtually made a career out of theft with her boyfriend Money (Daniel Zovatto) and their friend Alex (Dylan Minnette). Money gets a line on a potential big score that Rocky could use to get her and her little sister out of Detroit and their strung-out mother’s home: a blind man (Stephen Lang) who may have hundreds of thousands of dollars squirreled away somewhere inside his isolated home. It seems like an easy job, but what they don’t know is that the Blind Man is former military, highly trained and extremely dangerous with or without his eyesight. Their plan rapidly goes sideways, the thieves are trapped inside the house, and the hunt is on.

  I have to admit that I liked Don’t Breathe considerably more on a second watch than the first time around. It’s a solid, tense thriller that has one absolutely jaw-dropping sequence — a basement chase shot completely in the dark with super low-light cameras—that very nearly makes the whole movie worth watching on its own. Levy is a compelling lead, and she and Lang give their characters more weight than they probably really need. What starts off as a straightforward thrill ride moves into some jarringly disturbing territory, though, and when the Blind Man’s motives are unveiled, the movie trades in a lot of its unpretentious exploitation charm for something sleazier. I still don’t think the film works quite as well once it starts explaining what exactly is going on, but that first hour is pretty fantastic.

  Afterward Alvarez came out for a Q&A and was joined by surprise guest Stephen Lang. They took several questions from the audience and were both very thoughtful and very funny.

  Night of the Creeps (USA, dir. Fred Dekker, 30th anniversary screening)

  Fred Dekker’s first two features as a director—Night of the Creeps and The Monster Squad—are two of my enduring favorite films. I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Dekker a few years ago at a drive-in event screening a 35mm print of The Monster Squad, and that was really something of a dream come true for me. It doesn’t hurt, of course, that Dekker is as friendly as he is knowledgeable and passionate about movies. It’s a treat just to hang out and listen to him talk.

  So it was great news that the BCHFF was bringing him back to the Chicago area for a big-screen screening of Night of the Creeps (the director’s cut with the original ending, for anyone keeping score). This film is just tremendous fun to watch with a game crowd, and the BCHFF audience was the ideal group for such a screening. Afterward Dekker came out and did a Q&A and took some questions from the audience, which was extraordinarily gracious of him since the screening itself didn’t start until almost 10:30. The audience questions started well after midnight, but Dekker was as funny, sharp, and passionate as always. He also kindly stuck around for quite a while afterward for pictures and autographs with fans, which is always much appreciated.

  Bruce Campbell’s Horror Film Festival 2016: Day 2

  Originally published on Daily Grindhouse

  Pet (USA, dir. Carles Torrens – Chicago premiere)

  Seth (Dominic Monaghan) is a lonely man working at an animal shelter when he bumps into Holly (Ksenia Solo) one day on the bus. They went to high school together and Seth remembers her, although she clearly doesn’t remember him. He starts to follow her around and following a run-in with her boyfriend, Seth kidnaps Holly and locks her in a cage in a disused tunnel under the animal shelter. But the situation isn’t quite what it seems, and soon the two are engaged
in a psychological battle for control. Pet starts off in some deeply familiar territory, with Seth as the kind of “nice guy” who thinks locking a woman in a cage is a reasonable thing to do. Writer Jeremy Slater’s screenplay plays with upending the audience’s expectations, but this is still the kind of thing that would have played better as a cheap drive-in exploitation movie made in the 70s. In 2016, it’s damn near impossible to make a guy who kidnaps a woman a sympathetic protagonist regardless of his motives.

  Show Yourself (USA, dir. Billy Ray Brewton – World premiere)

  Following the death of his friend Paul (Clancy McCartney), actor Travis (Ben Hethcoat) travels to the cabin where they used to camp to scatter Paul’s ashes. It’s the off season, so Travis is completely alone to grieve. Well, not completely: he has his cell phone and laptop, so he stays in touch with Daniel (Stephen Cone), the director of his next film project, his friend Lane (Barak Hardley), his brother Adam (David McElwee), and his girlfriend Nikki (Corsica Wilson). What should have taken Travis an afternoon stretches into days as Travis tries to confront the truth about his relationship with Paul, and the longer he stays the more it appears someone or something is present with him in the woods. Show Yourself is a low-key dramatic horror film, heavy on the drama. Ben Hethcoat has to do much of the heavy lifting here as one of the only three actors ever seen on screen directly (all the others are only ever shown on the laptop or cell phone screen), and he delivers a solid lead performance. The pacing of the film is a little slack in the second half, but writer/director Billy Ray Brewton has created a unique take on the “cabin in the woods” and “haunted house” movie that is well worth seeking out for horror fans looking for something different.

  Doug Benson and Bruce Campbell also performed a Movie Interruption for Army of Darkness this evening, with a surprise screening of the first episode of the second season of Ash vs. Evil Dead following directly after. This was a riot to see in a packed theater full of Evil Dead fans, although its last-minute addition did push the timeline for the rest of the evening back a little. Show Yourself was scheduled to start at 10:00, but instead started around 10:45, so the midnight screening of From Beyond started closer to 12:30. As much as I love that movie, I had to tag out so I could get up early and prep for a full slate of screenings the next day!

  Bruce Campbell’s Horror Film Festival 2016: Day 3

  Originally published on Daily Grindhouse

  Abattoir (USA, dir. Darren Lyn Bousman – Chicago premiere)

  Following the brutal and seemingly unmotivated murder of her sister’s family, aspiring crime reporter Julia (Jessica Lowndes) returns to their home to find the room where the murders took place has been literally ripped out of the house. With reluctant assistance from her occasional lover detective Grady (Joe Anderson), she starts to dig and uncovers a series of similar events spanning decades. Determined to discover the truth, she follows her leads to an isolated town where the dense forests hide a horrible secret. Abattoir is a strange beast, starting off looking like a period noir until the first computer screen shows up. Julia and Grady don’t have dialogue so much as they have snappy banter, and they dress the parts, too. The first hour or so of the film is elaborate setup for its jaw-dropping final act. This is Bousman’s best film since Saw II, a unique and ambitious mystery/horror with style and personality to spare.

  Darren Lyn Bousman was in attendance for the BCHFF screening, and claimed during the Q&A after the film that the film was originally envisioned as a part of a larger story covering a limited TV series, a graphic novel, and this film. He also claimed that his first cut of Abattoir was 19 hours long, so maybe that TV series is still in the works? Bousman and his collaborators have created an intriguing mythology here, so it would be really interesting to see where else they might go with it.

  Beyond the Gates (USA, dir. Jackson Stewart – Chicago premiere)

  Seven months after the disappearance of their father, brothers Gordon (Graham Skipper) and John (Chase Williamson) get together to clean out his old video store. When they go into the store’s office, they discover their father had been in the middle of playing a VCR board game called “Beyond the Gates” when he went missing. Intrigued, they watch the tape, but soon discover it’s much more than just a game. As far as dead tech hooks go, the VCR board game is a new one and it lends itself perfectly to the 80s throwback tone of Beyond the Gates. It takes place in modern day, but the atmosphere is prime Satanic Panic. Barbara Crampton plays Evelyn, the mysterious hostess on the board game tape, providing director/co-writer Jackson Stewart a direct link to some of the 80s horror films that obviously inspired this film. The whole cast is fantastic, and Stewart nails the tone, making Beyond the Gates one of the most fun horror films of the year. Stewart attended the BCHFF screening along with cast members Barbara Crampton, Brea Grant, and Chase Williamson for a fun post-screening Q&A.

  I Am Not a Serial Killer (Ireland, dir. Billy O’Brien – Chicago premiere)

  John Wayne Cleaver (Max Records) is a high schooler who works at his mother’s funeral home and whose therapist Dr. Neblin (Karl Geary) has diagnosed him as a sociopath. John has a set of rules he follows to prevent him from hurting others, but when a rash of murders strikes the small town where he lives John begins breaking those rules as he launches his own investigation into the killings. He quickly learns that there is something in town much more dangerous than himself. I Am Not a Serial Killer is flat-out amazing, a seemingly effortless hybrid of mystery, horror, and coming of age stories driven by a pair of fantastic lead performances by Max Records and Christopher Lloyd as Crowley, John’s elderly neighbor. It’s often quite funny, but it also manages to be touching and unsettling without ever tipping too far into any one direction. It also looks beautiful, shot on 16mm film to give it a warm, pleasingly analog grain. Christopher Lloyd was at the BCHFF screening for a post-screening Q&A that unsurprisingly covered a lot of ground in his long career, and it was even more obvious that this film was a project close to his heart. This is one of the best films of the year, horror or otherwise, and will hopefully be out later this year from IFC Midnight.

  Following I Am Not a Serial Killer was a 30th anniversary screening of The Monster Squad. Bruce Campbell was on hand to introduce the film and special guests Andre Gower (who played “Sean”) and Ryan Lambert (who played “Rudy”). Gower and Lambert said a few brief words before bringing out writer/director Fred Dekker to accept the first BCHFF Groovy As Hell Lifetime Achievement Award, which is a very convincing replica of the hand chainsaw Ash wields in the Evil Dead films and series. The Monster Squad is always great fun to see with an audience, and the BCHFF crowd was especially enthusiastic. Dekker, Gower, and Lambert did a super fun Q&A after the film.

  Found Footage 3D (USA, dir. Steven DeGennaro – World premiere)

  Producer/actor Derek (Carter Roy) has gathered a small crew and his ex-wife Amy (Alena von Stroheim) to shoot a “found footage” horror movie at a remote house owned by Amy’s family. It’s about a married couple whose relationship is disintegrating who unwittingly go to a haunted house to give their marriage one last shot. This is also basically the same thing that is happening between Derek and Amy in real life, and although it sounds like a fairly standard “found footage” setup, Derek has come up with a gimmick to help them market the movie: it will be the first “found footage” movie shot in 3D. As the days wear on, tensions mount and the line between the film and their circumstances starts to blur. Found Footage 3D is a both a brilliant satire of “found footage” horror movies and one of the best examples of the form itself. Basically, with this film Steven DeGennaro has given “found footage” its equivalent of what Scott Glosserman’s Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon did for slasher movies. The cast is great, it’s very funny and it uses 3D in inventive and innovative ways. This is seriously one of the best uses of 3D I’ve ever seen.

  This was the first world premiere for the BCHFF, and appropriately the entire cast of the film was on hand as well as writer/direc
tor Steven DeGennaro. They revealed that the cast had all had experience in comedy and improv, which definitely showed in the final product. DeGennaro also happily admitted to being a huge fan of the “found footage” style of horror, which again was unsurprising given how thoughtfully this film plays with its conventions. Here’s hoping this film gets a wide release on big screens, because it absolutely needs to be seen in that format.

  The Greasy Strangler (USA, dir. Jim Hosking – Chicago premiere)

  A monstrous serial killer is on the loose in Los Angeles, leaving a trail of bodies and streaks of thick grease in his wake. Big Ronnie (Michael St. Michaels) lives with his son Big Brayden (Sky Elobar) and they give “disco tours” of the city, in which Ronnie points at buildings and claims disco stars were there at some point. During one tour, Brayden meets Janet (Elizabeth De Razzo), and a romance blossoms. There’s a complication, though: Big Ronnie is the Greasy Strangler, and he also can’t stand to see his son happy. A weird love triangle develops, and everybody says “shit” a lot.