Saint Maud

"Saint Maud" (2019, Rose Glass, Escape Plan Productions, Film4 Productions,  British Film Institute).

We meet Katie (Morphydd Clark); covered in blood, sitting on the floor. She is a nurse. On a gurney beside her lies a deceased patient. Katie is distraught, having failed to save them. 

Some time later we meet Katie again, but she has found God and reinvented herself. Now known as Maud, she takes a position as a private, live-in palliative care nurse to a wealthy dancer and choreographer called Amanda (Jennifer Ehle). Amanda is terminally ill and has lost the use of her legs, which as a dancer, she finds particularly hard to live with. Amanda is embittered by her situation, but Maud feels like they have a connection. When Amanda tells her of her fear of death, Maud comes to the belief that God has sent her here purposefully to save this woman's soul. Amanda perhaps further cements this belief by jokingly giving Maud a book of William Blake paintings, which are very religious in content, with an inscription penned on the cover calling Maud her 'saviour'. She also feigns a similar experience of ecstasy with Maud during a prayer.

But Amanda is still her own person and, despite Maud's best efforts to keep her "pure", Amanda enjoys too much booze, an endless supply of cigarettes, and the company of her friends. Including a friend called Carol (Lily Frazer), whom Amanda pays for sex. Maud's attempts to scare off Carol eventually lead to her own abrupt dismissal.

Distraught and furious, Maud practices self-flagellation and then gets extremely drunk. After a night of debauchery and a one-night-stand; which brings back vivid visions of her initial trauma, and a visit from an old colleague, Maud has a revelation and decides what it is she must do to fulfil her purpose as Amanda's saviour. 

An interesting film and a great character piece. Maud is a scary concept; so sure that she is in the right. Although she is not a physically imposing person, her power lies in her position as a care giver and her strong conviction. She is also continually dismissed by her peers; seen as an outcast or as harmless. 

Clark is excellent in the role as the obsessed and warped care giver and Ehle portrays the feisty, but broken spirit of Amanda with heartbreaking effect.

Maud's delusions and hallucinations are very subtle and effective and the effects and imagery slowly build up in impact throughout the film's duration. 

The locations and the contrast between Amanda's tragic life in her grand, ornate home and Maud's tragic life in her sparse bedsit, are beautifully stark.

I enjoyed the film, however, it does drag a little in places from a plot perspective. Definitely a slow burning film.

I wondered what the significance of Maud and "God's" communion being in Welsh was,  but a bit of research and an interesting interview piece I read from the director informs me that this was actually due to Glass overhearing Clark speaking Welsh to her family and it sounding good. Which, in honesty, is as good a reason as any and did inspire me to go hunting for answers in the first place!

Worth checking out, but less scary and more unsettling.

Currently available to rent from various VOD platforms, including Sky Store and Prime in the UK.

[Image: Film4 Produtions, et al]

Hani

Spree

 "Spree" (2020, Eugene Kotlyarenko, Forest Hill Entertainment,  DreamCrew, SuperBloom) is a found footage film.

Kurt (Joe Keery) is intent to go viral on social media after a kid he used to babysit, Bobby (Josh Ovalle), becomes a social media star. Taking a job as a rideshare app driver, he rigs up his car with webcams and begins his tutorial live stream on becoming viral. We follow him as he picks up and then murders customers, finding new ways to make his content increasingly interesting for his viewers. When he picks up a comedian, Jessie Adams (Sasheer Zamata), he hopes for a spike in followers, however, upon realising that his viewer figures are still low, he decides to find a more drastic way to gain notice! 

A creative and gory ride helmed by an increasingly manic, but very engaging performance by Keery. The commentary on society is far from unique, but the film manages to be both entertaining and provide a couple of surprises along the way where it did not go where I had assumed it was inevitably heading. The live stream and CCTV style works really well and does not suffer the same motion sickness impact that some more traditional found footage films seem to have. 

Definitely worth checking out. I had a genuinely good time with this one.

[Image: Forest Hill Entertainment, et al]

Hani

The Mortuary Collection

"The Mortuary Collection" (2019, Ryan Spindell, Trapdoor Pictures, AMP International, Shudder) is a horror anthology film.

We are welcomed to The Raven's End Mortuary by creepy mortician and keeper of many stories, Montgomery Dark (Clancy Brown), who recounts a few of his tales to us and his new prospective apprentice, Sam (Caitlin Custer). 

A very fun collection of tales which fit nicely into the wraparound story and provide the right level of humour, familiarity and freshness to make this anthology a must-see. 

Each short links well to the wraparound, and the wraparound itself if an intriguing tale of its own.

Brown delivers Montgomery Dark with a relish that is utterly captivating and Custer provides not only some wit and cynicism but also a few surprises of her own.

The effects are on the whole excellent and enjoy an 80s style appeal without trying too hard to be too nostalgia driven. 

I don't want to go into too many details about the shorts because they are great fun and deserve to be seen, but this film has a few humorous and gory gems to share as well as some emotional moments that are really effective.

Definitely worth checking out and currently streaming on Shudder and available to buy on physical media.

[Image: Trapdoor Pictures, et al]

Hani

Vampires vs. The Bronx

"Vampires vs. The Bronx" (2020, Osmany Rodriguez, Broadway Video, Caviar, Netflix) is a coming of age vampire comedy set in The Bronx neighbourhood of New York City.

Miguel (Jaden Michael), Bobby (Gerald W. Jones III) and Luis (Gregory Diaz IV) are three friends living in The Bronx. Aside from the usual troubles of girls, overbearing mothers and bullies, the kids are trying to arrange a block party to raise funds to save their local shop and favourite hangout from being shut down and gentrified by a vampiric real estate agency called Murnau Enterprises (a nod to F. W. Murnau; director of the 1922 classic "Nosferatu") who it turns out, are more vampiric than the kids know.... being run by actual vampires...

After Miguel witnesses someone being eaten, the race begins to put a stop to the Murnau company's evil plans, while trying to avoid being eaten themselves! 

A charming film with a 12 rating, so you know going in to expect minimal actual scares. The actors give a great performance as our three protagonists; funny, sweet and characters you want to root for. They are supported by a fun and energetic cast of other characters and the film does a good job of setting up the community feeling of the neighbourhood and its inhabitants. The vampires are cartoonishly ghoulish and possibly rely a little too heavily on the ol' Max Schreck hand gimmick, but fit in with the fun tone of the film.

Definitely a bit of fun just in time for Halloween, and hopefully a film that will attract young potential horror fans with its humour, charm and vampires!

 [Image: Netflix et al]

Hani

Angelica

 "Angelica" (2015, Mitchell Lichtenstein, Pierpoline Films) is a ghost story set in Victorian England, and loosely based on a novel of the same name by Arthur Phillips.

Mitchell Lichtenstein, the man also behind 2007's "Teeth", brings us a ghost story centred, of course, around the lady bits of a young Victorian woman called Constance (Jena Malone). 

Constance marries surgeon Joseph Barton (Ed Stoppard) and soon falls pregnant with their child, Angelica. However, after a traumatic birth, the Bartons are warned to halt all future sexual intercourse; something that both Constance and Joseph find difficult to adhere to. Constance also suffers from severe postpartum depression and finds she cannot separate herself from Angelica for any length of time, to the extent that it further damages her marriage. 

When Constance begins to tell of a sexually explicit apparition of a man haunting the room of Angelica, Joseph dismisses this as further strange 'womanly' behaviour, leading Constance to seek the help of their servant, Nora (Tovah Feldschuh) and her occultist friend and con-artist, Anne Montague (Janet McTeer).

A film that attempts to straddle the line of elegant Victorian stuffiness and perversity, but is subject to a heavy-handedness that leans further towards the latter. Without the strong lead from Malone, who manages to maintain an air of decorum despite the plot's many indignities, it would be a somewhat difficult watch. Many of the scenes head more towards incidental humour and the film lacks the more horror elements that would usually be associated with a Victorian ghost tale.

[Image: Pierpoline Films]

Hani

The Babysitter: Killer Queen

 "The Babysitter: Killer Queen" (2020, McG, Netflix, Wonderland Sound & Vision, Boies/Schiller Film Group) is the sequel to 2017's "The Babysitter".

Judah Lewis reprises his role as Cole, now 2 years older and a bit of a social pariah, having shared his story of the eventful night with Bee (Samara Weaving) and her murderous pals with friends and family... No one believes him, of course. 

An unusual new girl called Phoebe (Jenna Ortega) joins the school who catches Cole's eye, but she seems to have her own problems.

On learning that he is being enrolled in a special school by his parents, Cole runs off with his friend Melanie (Emily Alyn Lind) and her pals for a party. Everything seems to be going as awkwardly as he anticipated until... tables turn and, with the help of Phoebe, he finds himself once again pitted against the odds. 

A fun follow up to the original that continues in a similar style with tongue-in-cheek tropes and a weirdly paced sense of humour. The action remains fun, gory and cartoonish and there are many familiar faces from the first film. However, liking the first film may not necessarily mean this one will tick your boxes; taking the plot out of one location does widen the scope of the story, but does in some respects make it feel a little more disjointed and less neat than the original film.

[Image: Netflix, et al]

Hani

Armistice

 "Armistice" aka "The Captive" aka "Warhouse" (2013, Luke Massey, Double Dutch Film) is a supernatural and psychological thriller.

A.J. Budd (Joseph Morgan) is a Royal Marine who awakens in a strange house. He doesn't remember how he got there, or where exactly he is. In fact, he can't remember much outside of his name and his Rank. He goes downstairs to find breakfast waiting for him, but before he can tuck in he's attacked by a grotesque zombie-like creature. After dispatching of the creature, he finds that he cannot escape the house. Eventually, he finds the creature's body has disappeared and a bag of chips await him for dinner. 

As well as being inescapable, the house also contains no other food than that left for him and all the books are blank inside. Confused, he turns in only to wake and experience a second identical day.

Eventually he finds some books that have been used as diaries by another trapped soldier from some time before called Edward Sterling (Matt Ryan). Sterling reveals that he also has no memory from before the house but he has been injured apparently in battle and has slowly begun to unravel the secrets of the house. Through Sterling's many diaries, Budd attempts to navigate an escape as well as to defend himself from the attacking creatures and attempt to maintain his sanity. But will he dig too far and discover a truth he would rather not know about this place? And what of Sterling's fate?

A slow burning, contemplative film that explores the concepts of self identity (and perhaps of soldiers in particular having that identity changed by their work), of loneliness, of war and of human resilience (or, in some cases, breaking point) while also weaving in some humour to break up the bleakness. The film uses its low budget nature as part of the plot delivery. Our protagonists are trapped and the setting is claustrophobic and repetitive. Both actors give a fantastic performance as they live out their endless identical days and slowly begin to unravel. 

Despite never meeting, Budd and Sterling become almost friends with one keeping the other going up until a point. And the sense of loss and betrayal that Morgan's character experiences as the plot reaches its climax is palpable. 

There are a few little plot holes that leave unanswered questions about how the rules of this prison work. Such as how Sterling is overjoyed to find that a brick he had smashed remains smashed upon his waking, but he never seemed to question his daily markings on the wall and his diary entries remaining intact when other things reset. Perhaps the house has a sense of cruel irony that the prisoners can track their hopeless time but cannot effect their prison permanently. However, the mystery of the house is well achieved and the film keeps the viewer engaged with its clever diary delivery and the comparison of both men's experiences. There's also a really clear sense of difference in era between Sterling and Budd which is shown in their characterisation but also in how they choose to spend their time. I enjoyed the clear contrast between Edward's time spent improving his playing of the piano and Budd's time making an extravagant pillow fort!

Both characters are tragic but their journeys and experiences in the house go in different directions. With Budd finding some motivation in Sterling's writings. Sterling drives the narrative and his journey is driven by a stiff-upper-lip mentality to hold on as long as possible, but inevitably this leads to despair. The scenes with the piano and the wind up to his ultimate fate are emotional.

The effects and make up are practical and gooey. As a fan of low budget gungy gore I was suitably satisfied. 

I make no secret of my appreciation for Matt Ryan, but I say this as a film fan in general when I tell you that this film is a thoughtful film worth checking out. Currently available on Prime UK.

[Images: Double Dutch Films]

Hani