Tuesday 15 September 2020

Night Visions: The New Ab-normal

 
Things are different this year around, which meant for the regular spring edition of Night Visions film festival getting cancelled. But at least here in Finland things got a little better, so there was an opportunity to have a festival in August. Things are changing also in the way I'm writing a festival report after a long while.

Butt Boy (USA, 2019)
Director: Tyler Cormack

 
This is a movie about an obsession, addiction and the willingness to wreck lives to achieve it. It's also a serial-killer movie about a dude, who (SPOILER) sucks people and objects inside his cavernous butthole. As far as crazy premises go, this one takes itself as seriously as it physically can.

As a whole, this film moves quite slowly. It has some perks, like watching the slowly ravelling cat-and-mouse game between Tyler Cornack's perp and Tyler Rice's cop on the edge. When the actual reveal comes, it changes the film's dynamic entirely, making the last quarter or so a real blast of butt-jokes. It is not quite as crazy as I had hope it would be, but I got some good chuckles and the melancholic feel of the movie really got to me.

★★★

Luz: The Flower of Evil (Columbia, 2019)
Dir. Juan Diego Escobar Alzate


This latest word in folk horror sees a reclusive cult live off the land. The cult leader El Señor (Conrado Osorio) keeps multiple wives and declares his youngest child to be the next Messiah. The other children, three daughters, find an object of the outside world and have different reactions, from wanting to escape to undying loyalty and laboring hard for the cult. The film doesn't really manage to give a good athmosphere or raise the stakes as one would wish from a horror film. Visually, it's clearly a fan product of the works of Alejandro Jodorowsky. But the actors are quite good in their roles, and one manages to sit through the film woith relative ease, even if it doesn't ever really deliver as good as one would want.

★★ 1/2

Tezuka's Barbara (Japan, 2019)
Dir. Macoto Tezuka

 
The pinku film seems to follow pretty clearly the godfather of manga Osamu Tezuka's comics. It is a story of a regular guy becoming increasingly obsessed by a homeless girl he meets on the streets of Tokyo. Like most pinkus I've seen, this one is quite slow with very few and not very graphic sex scenes. The ideas and obsessions around sex are more important than the act itself. There are a few scenes of note here that remind of Tezuka's odd sense of humour and richness of his imagination. But as a whole, the film is quite stilted, not utilizing what film can bring to the table as opposed to manga. So, this one felt quite dull in the end.

★★

Klovn The Final (Denmark, 2020)
Dir. Mikkel Norgaard

 
After the bit disappointing Klovn Forever, it's fun to see the third part in a trilogy somewhat return to its roots. At this point, Frank Hvam and Casper Christensen's rowdy comedies know what audiences are expecting, and both tease them with it but in the end, also deliver. It's not quite as graphic as the two previous ones, but altogether it might be ruder. It's crazy funny, at least.

The movie opened in Denmark just before the Corona crisis, so it's weird to see it tackle self-isolation for a length of its time. However, since an embarrassing mishap has cost them their trip in Iceland, Frank and Casper have to hide out in a vacant house next door to Frank's family. One small lie leads to bigger and bigger ones, and the strain to Frank's marriage in particular is stretched to a breaking point. Casper works as a ruthless id, caring little about anything else besides getting laid and getting the two into bigger and bigger troubles.

Not all of the film's gags quite land, and they are eager to set up some scenes that they oddly drop off at the blink of an eye. But when a good joke is laid out, waiting and then suddenly given an unexpected punchline, one can't help but to fall over laughing. I laughed, I cried, I hurled.

★★★★

Rabid (Canada, 2019)
Dir. The Soska Sisters

 
Even if 1977's Rabid isn't the most popular film in David Cronenberg's filmography, it is still risky to even attempt to redo one of the corner stones of the body horror movement. The Soska Sisters realize this, and while the end result is definitely going to split viewers, I do think they managed to update the ideas to a modern setting quite well. Maybe this should be a Re:Make blog post later on?

The new version downplays sexuality and the inner shame caused by it, as seen in regular horror movie tropes. The idea this time around is more like a feminist satire showing a woman being punished by outside forces for showing initiative in general. Timid fashion designer Rose (Laura Vanderwoort) isn't getting the recognition she deserves until she has an accident and an experimental skin operation to fix it. Too bad it also makes her a Patient Zero in a vampiric disease that starts to wreack havock.

 


It's kind of a wonder how ahead the curve the Soskas were last year. The vampire disease and the reactions of it, ranging from trying to shrug it off and continuing as if nothing is happening to outright maliciousness of trying to benefit from people dying, seems like satire from the reactions to COVID-19. There's even a barb at the police violence against poor people that have the disease. The Soskas make plenty of changes to the original, with a lot of emphasis on a sisterly relationship, and a thoroughly bonkers final reveal to match. All the bitterness surrounding the depiction fashion industry don't quite work, but the film bursts with ideas enough that one can give or take a few clunkers as something entirely else is just around the corner.

★★★★

The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil (Akinjeon, South Korea, 2019)
Dir. Lee Won-tae

 
Supposedly this south korean crime actioner is based on actual events of a mob boss testifying in court against a serial killer. It does deliver some grisly violence, surprising twists and well-rounded characters. The actors are wonderful, especially Ma Dong-seok as the burly kingpin who has to revalue his pendant for violence and need for revenge as an even more ruthless murderer (Kim Sung-kyu) tries to kill him. There are only shades of grey here, as the cop (Kim Mu-yeol) himself is a corrupt gambler and a drunk, happily spending his spare time in mob-owned casinos. The film is well-done entertainment, but has a bit of an abrupt ending, like you would expect from a TV series, and it doesn't really feel to have a central idea strong enough to really elevate it into a classic. 

★★★

Dolls (USA/Italy 1987)
Dir. Stuart Gordon

 

Night Visions also paid tribute to the late horror master Stuart Gordon with a screening of his classic horror-comedy. Dolls may not be quite among the very best of Gordon's filmography, but as is usual for the director's oveure, it is better than you would think. And it's generally thought to be the best of producer Charles Band's various killer toy movies that also include the Demonic Toys and Puppet Master franchises.

For the hardcore horror buff, the film might be a bit childish, though. It's central character is a little girl (Carrie Lorraine) and all the adult characters are overplayed caricatures, like you would find in a Roald Dahl book. They also meet similar grisly ends in a magic mansion filled with creepy dolls, or getting turned into dolls themselves. There are a couple of rowdy punk girls, evil yuppie stepparents, a weird elderly couple, and a plump but well-meaning dweeb (Stephen Lee). 


While the plot isn't anything terribly extraordinary, nor scary, the film is kept reasonably short and gives a few good one-liners to chuckle now and again. The puppet effects are kind of crude, but kept in a way that makes them mysterious enough. That was some of the magic of Gordon's filmmaking, he always knew how to stretch his budgets to suit the storytelling he aimed for.

★★★

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