LFM: Libertas Film Magazine

By Joe Bendel. Compared to the Mountain Vista Motel, the Bates Motel is quite a going concern. Like Norman Bates, Ted Henley also has mommy issues, but his absentee mother ran-off with a truck driver, abandoning him and his shell of a father long ago. That has not helped his moral-ethical development much. However, there is good reason to suspect the nine-year old is naturally inclined towards sociopathic violence. We will watch as his nature and lack of nurture lead to horrific results in Craig William Macneill’s The Boy, which opens tomorrow in New York.

The Bates Motel comparison is inescapable, but frankly, everything about Henley screams future serial killer. Even his name evokes memories of Bundy and Hinckley. As the film opens, Henley’s pa pays him a quarter for each roadkill carcass he cleans off the mountain highway skirting round their usually vacant motel. Henley has devised ways to entice more small varmints to their death, hoping to earn enough money for a bus ticket to visit his disinterested mother. Of course, these killer instincts will steadily escalate over time.

William Colby is first outsider to get caught up in Henley’s schemes. He happens to have the misfortune of barreling into a deer grazing on Henley’s highway chum. With his car totaled, Colby will be staying for a while. Decidedly not the former CIA director, this Colby has a mysterious past of his own, which fascinates Henley for all the wrong reasons.

The Boy is a decidedly slow building thriller, but it really does build, with the tension slowly increasing second, by discernable second. This is only Macneill’s second full feature and his first as the sole helmer, but it is remarkably disciplined. He shows the sort of mastery of unitary mood Poe advocated for short story writers. Macneill never indulges in cheap gore just to placate genre fans, but The Boy is absolutely not a tease. When it gets where it is going, it is pretty darned jarring.

Young Jared Breeze is perfectly cast as Henley. A first blush, he looks like an innocent toe-headed scamp but when you peer into his eyes, you see the psychotic hellion. Unfortunately, the film’s midnight genre credentials mean David Morse will probably receive limited recognition for one of his best film performances as the tragically in-denial and self-loathing Mr. Henley. Rainn Wilson also does some career best work as the erratic Colby.

In fact, there will probably be a bit of an expectations disconnect for The Boy as a former SXSW midnight selection released under Chiller’s theatrical banner. It is an unusually accomplished work from Macneill and his cast that would appeal to fans of art house auteurs, like maybe Refn Winding and Gaspar Noe. Highly recommended for discerning horror and psychological thriller fans, The Boy opens todday (8/21) in New York, at the Cinema Village.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on August 21st, 2015 at 10:33am.

By Joe Bendel. Thanks to the original Poltergeist film, nobody wants to build on ancient burial sites anymore. Unfortunately, Chrissie Swanson’s high school was prefabbed in the 1960s or 1970s, when they were not so particular about defiling sacred ground. As a result, a legend of a curse hangs over the student body, inevitably given credence to many by the annual untimely death of a senior during the week before graduation. Swanson is not superstitious, but a psycho-stalker gives her very real and immediate cause for concern in Derick Martini’s The Curse of Downers Grove, co-adapted by Bret Easton Ellis, which opens this Friday in select theaters.

It is sad enough living in a burg called Downers Grove. With a name like that, suicide and depression should be even bigger problems than curses. Swanson is too level-headed for any of that. She is a defiant unbeliever, despite her periodic visions of irate Native Americans. Inexplicably, her single mom chooses the notorious curse week to gallivant off with her beau for a romantic getaway. Sure, she is entitled to lead her own life, but if you live in Downers Grove, some things ought to be pretty high on your worry list.

Of course, this gives Swanson’s obnoxious younger brother and her trampy BFF Tracy an opportunity to throw a blow-out bash. However, Swanson is in no mood to party after the local college’s star quarterback tries to pull a Cosby on her at a frat mixer. Swanson manages to fight him off, but gauges an eye out in the process. Evidently, this will not help his NFL prospects much. As a result, the now one-eyed Chuck lurches into full blown psychosis. The Swanson siblings, Tracy, and Bobby, Chrissie’s sensitive auto mechanic crush, will have to hunker down and try to weather the storm.

In some ways, Downers Grove is sort of like a throwback to Kevin Williamson’s glory years, but Elis and Martini deserve surprising credit for not over-writing it. They never over-reach trying to sound hip and ironic. Frankly, the film is pretty grounded, all things considered. Although it is nowhere near as effective as David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows, both films portray the young characters’ relationships with similarly realistic complications and ambiguities.

Lead actress Bella Heathcote is not exactly Maika Monroe either, but she is still refreshingly down-to-earth and forceful. Neither a shrinking violet nor a scream queen, she shows some real screen presence and backbone. As Chuck, Kevin Zeggers goes nuts pretty effectively. On the other hand, Lucas Till feels out of place playing Bobby, as if he were afraid he might get some grease on his clothes.

Swanson’s “if I had but only known” voice-over narration is ridiculously heavy-handed, yet it sort of fits the occasion for precisely that reason. Although it is a relatively straight forward genre movie, Downers Grove is not as horrifying as The Canyons or as nihilistic as American Psycho. In fact, it is reasonably effective in a VOD kind of way, arguably representing Ellis’s best film work to date. While not a classic by any means, The Curse of Downers Grove holds a strange, somewhat guilty, retro-nostalgic late 1990s appeal for horror fans when it releases this Friday (8/21) in selected theaters and on iTunes.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on August 19th, 2015 at 6:39pm.

By Joe Bendel. For the fortieth anniversary of Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), David Lam and his all-star cast celebrated like it was 2008. Like Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. in The F.B.I., Louis Koo’s William Luk will righteously crusade against crooked cops and shadowy financial conspiracies, but he will have the fringe benefit of investigating Dada Chan in Lam’s Z Storm, which releases today on DVD and Blu-ray from Well Go USA.

Wong Man Bin is such a corrupt cop, he is even dirtier than some of white collar crooks he covers for, like the rather compromised accounting firm proprietor, who is quite surprised when Wong makes incriminating evidence disappear. Evidently, his paymaster, the extravagantly venal attorney Malcom Wu needs his house’s help to take the Madoff-esque Z Fund public. However, Wong’s recklessness also attracts the attention of Luk, who starts connecting the dots.

Since the former government chairman is the Z Fund’s public front-man, investigating Wu’s operation is a touchy proposition. To make matters worse, a major public-private charitable account will go all in with the Z Fund, once it is successfully listed. As a result, Luk is given a hard six day deadline to take down the Fund before it lists. Past that point, he must close his investigation rather than risk sparking a crisis of confidence that might jeopardize the charity funds. Unfortunately, each of his leads meets a tragic end, accept perhaps the mystery woman associated with Wu, Angel Leung On Ying.

As Luk, Koo seethes like the old pro he is, but it is the bad guys that really make Z Storm work. Michael Wong does his gloriously hammy thing, except even more so, as the spectacularly villainous Wu. However, Gordon Lam Ka Tung nearly matches the scenery Wong masticates, stick for stick, as the profoundly underhanded Wong Man Bin. It is almost like they are facing off in some sort of evil-doers’ Olympics.

Strangely, Dada Chan hardly has any time to establish Leung’s character, since about ninety-five percent of her screen time comes in the third act. However, the camera still adores her. It is also favorably inclined towards Janelle Sing, who inspires confidence as Tammy Tam, the ICAC’s brainy IT specialist.

There are a several nicely executed action sequences, but the many scenes of the ICAC arriving just seconds too late get a little frustrating. Still, the star power and the refreshingly complicated intrigue keep the film chugging along. Some occasional weird references also give the film idiosyncratic character. I’ll bet you didn’t know Zorro was a Spanish knight, whose weapon of choice was a sword. At least, that is what Z Storm thinks (evidently the Disney, George Hamilton, and Antonio Banderas incarnations never made it to HK). No matter, Chan and Koo are ridiculously attractive, while Lam and Wong are outrageously dastardly. Recommended for those who enjoy financial thrillers with a dash of flamboyance, Z Storm is now available on DVD, Blu-ray, and Digital HD, from Well Go USA.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on August 19th, 2015 at 6:38pm.