Passivity threatens the chills

 I TRAPPED THE DEVIL (2019)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

What they term slow-burn in cinema nowadays, I simply call leisurely. Horror films at their best, particularly in evoking dread about the supernatural, take their sweet time in developing a story with characters of some note, some personality. "I Trapped the Devil" is leisurely paced with an ominous music score yet it failed to entice me because the characters were thinly veiled and somewhat uninteresting.

There is hope from the start when we observe a bearded man named Steve (Scott Poythress) living alone in a family home with an old Christmas tree and lots of Christmas lights. It is of course Christmas time and Steve's brother, Matt (AJ Bowen) and his fiance, Karen (Susan Burke), arrive unexpectedly. Steve wants them out of his house and Matt knows there is something quite perturbed about his brother. Apparently, Steve is keeping a man locked in a separate room in his cellar with a wooden cross barricading it. This is no ordinary man, though, this is the Devil himself.

I wouldn't dream of giving anything away yet, on the other hand, there is not much to give away. We never see the Devil, but we do hear him talk. And he does talk about needing help and wanting to get out (these few moments of that red-lit door are chilling). Steve also talks about his past life with his wife who had passed away, and she fleetingly appears in split-second images flickering on the TV monitor. Steve also talks about the Devil and evil, and newspaper events of missing people that have come back. The reason behind the sudden reemergence of these missing people? Not good detective work but rather because he has kept the Devil locked up in his house. How and why are two very pressing questions that I did not need answers to nor are they provided. But we do have to get through a lot of talk and exposition and not much action to get to a finale that isn't quite the sum of its parts.

I was not expecting split-second shots of mutilations or bloodied corpses or any "Evil Dead" mayhem - I have seen enough of that nonsense to know it doesn't always work with regards to a story about the Devil or demons. It does pain me to say that for an indie horror flick, this one just occasionally bored me. Again, not because I was wrung dry by hair-trigger scares or false alarms but because the dread is too drawn-out for a such a simple story. Scott Poythress maintains some level of introspection yet most of the time he's either silent or holding a gun or ready to babble - I never felt truly invested in his probable delusions or perhaps the reality that he really has confined a supernatural creature. AJ Bowen's Matt and Susan Burke's Karen appear to be more apathetic than concerned over a situation that could be a potential kidnapping - nobody thinks about calling 911. Sure, there is a sliver of concern but once Karen finds a loaded gun, it is only of passing concern. These characters, excepting Poythress's Steve, are far too passive.

I respect the attempt by debuting director Josh Lobo and if his interest is in developing stories of suppressed or unseen evil in the most remote locations, I am all for it. Yet he does need to develop his characters and/or their personalities a bit more. This could have been a fascinating, claustrophobic examination of a character who may or may not be losing his sanity. All we get saddled with is a lot of red tinted cellar scenes, too many talky moments, and the barest of shudders about the alleged menace behind that cellar door. The menace, like the Devil, sounds a hell of a lot more interesting than anyone else in the movie. 

Stale Vengeance

 EYE OF THE TIGER (1986)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Survivor's iconic song, "Eye of the Tiger" (written specifically for "Rocky III") was a song I played relentlessly in 1982. I had the LP and played the song over and over, pretending to be Rocky Balboa while doing the warmups. That nostalgic moment in my early pre-teen years will stay with me longer than the stale, moronic and completely absurd revenge action picture called "Eye of the Tiger." Oh, yes, that iconic song is played twice in this movie, naturally titled "Eye of the Tiger," yet the song would've been better served in "The Lion King" soundtrack. 

Check this plot out and see if you can count all the cliches. Gary Busey is Buck, a family man let out of prison who finds his childhood town has been terrorized by a motorcycle gang in league with the bastard of a sheriff (Seymour Cassel, of all people). That means the gang can pillage, steal, and rape women whenever they want. Lovely. I already see a superior movie - the original "Mad Max." In fact, the virtually anonymous gang is led by a biker leader with a very poor man's Mohawk (William Smith - shades of Vernon Wells' Wez from "The Road Warrior"). To top it all off, they are living like scavengers in a desert plot of sorts just like the biker gang from "The Road Warrior." Even worse, the gang barrel through Buck's house and kill his wife and reduce the daughter to elongated catatonia. 

Gary Busey is one of those actors that looks like he is made of steel and can't be hurt - he is the perfect hero for this. Yet there is nothing to latch onto in Buck's character, especially when he shares not one tear after his wife is dead. The gang even remove the dead wife's coffin and drag it to his demolished house! These guys are pure evil and they get their just desserts in one crafty explosion after another. I just yawned through the whole thing. 

Keeping Solidarity in secret

 MOONLIGHTING (1982)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

A British home workman might charge more money to renovate a home than a Polish worker who just wants a chance to make a little money to, you know, to buy a watch and a bicycle. "Moonlighting" is about Polish workers who come into London with temporary visas to illegally renovate a Polish government official's home. This may not sound like an exciting story for a movie but when you consider the logistical complications of the Polish workman doing a job illegally and secretly while Poland is facing martial law, "Moonlighting" becomes one of the great, exciting, humorous political films of all time without bluntly throwing politics in your face.

Jeremy Irons is completely convincing as a Polish foreman, Nowak, who brings along his workers to London and he is the only one that can speak English. They move into the flat, demolish walls, work through the nights at times, paint and fall behind schedule too. The men need entertainment so the funds are used to buy a TV for forty pounds that has no plug and no antenna (referred to as "aerial") so they can watch sports. When the TV breaks down, it almost comes as a blessing in disguise because Nowak discovers through the British national newspaper that Poland is under martial-law (the Solidarity movement). The laborers can't speak or read in English and they also can't speak to their relatives or families in Poland since all lines are cut off. In addition, Nowak starts running out of money and finds a clever way of stealing from a local supermarket by misplacing his gloves. Will the Solidarity movement end before they finish their work or will they find out that their foreman has been keeping a secret?

"Moonlighting" is fluidly directed by Polish film director Jerzy Skolimowski ("The Shout"), and all the possibilities and outcomes of such a dire scenario are played out with utmost skill and authority. Every frame of "Moonlighting" contains escalating tension between Nowak and his tired workers. Every detail is wrung out from Nowak collecting a neighbor's newspaper for the latest headlines, to stealing a bicycle when his own is stolen, to the supermarket managers catching on to his thievery, to Nowak's black-and-white picture of his wife, to trying and failing to pick up a salesgirl, and avoiding clashes with the apartment landlord who can't stand the loud construction noise during the night. Irons gets underneath the skin of Nowak, a man facing a monumental crisis of faith in himself and his native country. The final scene of revelation is a nail-biter, showcasing the realities of a world falling apart.

 Simply made with complex weaving of fragile emotions and fragile relationships between Nowak and his workers without seeing one frame (other than on a TV news channel) of Poland's Solidarity in late 1981, "Moonlighting" is essential cinema about a fractured, frenzied time that demands attention and recognition.   

This is not America

THE FALCON AND THE SNOWMAN (1985)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

What works best in John Schlesinger's absorbing Cold War-spy-drama-as-played-by-amateurs is that the movie never judges them nor does it celebrate, condone or admonish these traitors either. Based on a true story, it is a mistake to read "The Falcon and the Snowman" (the characters' sobriquets) as anything but traitors yet it is not how they view themselves. Well, not Christopher Boyce though Daulton Lee does see it that way.

Timothy Hutton plays Christopher Boyce and a highly unrecognizable Sean Penn plays Daulton, both California kids from well-to-do families and former altar boys. Boyce chose a vocation with the ministry and then opted out, though the reasons remain unclear. He goes out in the wilderness and sends his pet falcon to fly around catching birds. Daulton is a mess, a nervous wreck of a kid who goes out on drug deals in Mexico and does nothing else worthwhile in his life. Both of these 22-year-olds live with their parents and are best friends. Boyce's father is a retired FBI agent (fabulously played by Pat Hingle) and gets his son a job at RTX, a defense contractor in a separate, cryptic (in every sense of the word) section called the Black Vault. This is a secretive room within the building's confines that employs a Vietnam Vet (Dorian Harewood) and a flirty, engaging woman (Mady Kaplan) as they monitor CIA cables being sent and addressed to NSA regarding world affairs. Boyce can't stop himself from reading these cables and finds there is a wide U.S. surveillance using intricate satellite systems, specifically zoning in on Australia with regards to the prime minister. Clearly a lot of these cables are not meant for mainstream news thanks to national security.

"The Falcon and the Snowman" is based on Robert Lindsay's novel and is exceedingly good, spine-tingling filmmaking. It has nerve, poise and an attitude about spying as a generally slow-moving, intricate and dangerous process. Hutton's Boyce decides it is a good idea to sell some secret documents and codes to a Russian embassy in Mexico. Guess who the courier is? Why none other than Penn's Daulton who at first scoffs at the idea of selling top secret documents to an embassy for a then-Soviet Communist country. "I am a patriot...and proud of it," says Daulton. Daulton seems to have no political ideals though he is aware of dire political situations in the past, like the socialist Allende elected to Chile's government. Paranoid Daulton does it for the money, while Boyce is doing it out of some far-reaching idealism I couldn't quite fathom. His eyes are opened to the NSA's practices of trying to influence elections and foreign governments by spying on them. This is what Boyce can't get a grip on and somehow feels he has to let the embassy know they are watched. The boys are complete amateurs and yet, as voiced by David Suchet as Alex, a KGB agent, "the minute you took money, you became a professional." 

While watching "The Falcon and the Snowman," one becomes aware how these two professionals are anything but. Boyce just has to tell Daulton about the secret inner workings of our government. Daulton often lets the cat out of the bag to women friends and even to his own disbelieving family! Daulton also makes himself a prime target to the Russians by waltzing in to the embassy, sometimes climbing the wall to get in (who knew it could be that easy). That's what makes this movie potent and fully charged in its energetic storytelling - these are just kids who eventually realize they are playing with fire and it will lead to their inevitable downfall. Hutton shows the sullenness of Boyce - he's smarter and alert to what he's doing and to whom yet there is a fundamental loss of understanding I had about him. Is it really ideals or does he realize during this late 1970's period of Nixon and Watergate and Vietnam that disillusionment has settled in and he has nothing to lose? With Penn's Daulton, he just becomes a coked-up freak who is imbecilic and suffers pain and torture in the process before being arrested by the FBI. Despite becoming professional spies, they are still amateurs. 

Fuzzy, improbable journalistic tale

 STREET SMART (1987)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Every sparkling moment of absolute restraint and commanding power is supplied by Morgan Freeman in the slipshod and wholly unbelievable film, "Street Smart." Freeman plays a tough pimp who is wanted for murder and has built a notoriety that gives many people in the meaner streets of New York City pause. That would have made a far more engaging story than the one given in this ridiculous, below-par Cannon production effort.

Christopher Reeve plays Jonathan, a falsely intrepid reporter for a "New York"-style magazine who either finds a good story soon or loses his job. So Jonathan fabricates one about some pimp in New York City and the story gets published and has everyone at the magazine fooled (though this kind of practice has occurred in reality, it is somehow too easy in this movie where he just spends one night writing it). Jonathan might have everyone fooled but only his wife (a far too one-dimensional Mimi Rogers) knows the truth and, apparently, so does Fast Black (Oscar-nominated performance by Morgan Freeman), an actual pimp who knows the story is fiction as well as the details. Through the help of a charming, wickedly smart prostitute (Kathy Baker), she gets Jonathan access to Fast Black's life on the streets who goes along on car rides with the less-than-glorious pimp. What does Jonathan find? Fast Black can severely threaten his women if they try to outsmart him with money or have delusions of getting out of the streets. One good scene takes place at a basketball court and one of the players tries to tackle Fast Black - this is a rule-breaker because Fast Black always wins. If only the meandering screenplay played by the rules of its own story and fleshed out the details but the movie sputters going back and forth between Jonathan and Fast Black when we are more invested in the latter. 

Reeve's Jonathan is not a believable character for a moment - he makes too many stupid mistakes and I never believed that this fictitious article would cause a ruckus to the point that lawyers and the district attorney would think Jonathan was writing about Fast Black! Christopher Reeve doesn't have the look of a magazine writer - he seemed more believable as Clark Kent. The movie also never decides whether we should follow Jonathan's story as the protagonist or Fast Black's. At 96 minutes, the movie feels truncated and doesn't flow like the topical journalistic tale it aims to be. One minute, Jonathan is a star as a writer, and then the next moment he ends up on TV as host of a show called "Street Smart." Amazing career prospects! Only Freeman's frightening Fast Black and Baker's sweetly sensible prostitute seem to occupy a real world where morality is at stake. Jonathan walks on by, unaware and incompetent and facing legal challenges yet still on a career uptick. Who is this movie trying to fool?  

Sky is falling

 KNOCK AT THE CABIN (2023)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Let it be said: the last time that M. Night Shyamalan directed an apocalyptic tale, it was a sign of an impending cinematic apocalypse. No Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were needed to foretell that impending disaster called "The Happening" and that was the last Nightman movie I had seen for a while. Until now. Only now the Nightman has chosen to adapt a novel and write it as a gloom-and-doom tale with some shred of optimism. "Knock at the Cabin" is intriguing for a while yet it falls apart towards its climax and leaves us with more questions than answers. Normally that would work within the framework of a movie like this but the questions linger and made me wonder why this tale needed to be woven this way.

7-year-old Wen (Kristen Cui) is collecting grasshoppers in a mason jar to study them and see how they react to their environment. Wen is in the middle of the woods near a cabin when she spots a huge figure in the background walking towards her. He is Leonard (Dave Bautista), a kind and gentle man who explains to Wen that he is on a mission and has to save the world. Before Wen can question Leonard's odd mission, three other people materialize out of the woods with makeshift weapons. Wen runs to her two adopted dads at the cabin, Eric (Jonathan Groff) and Andrew (Ben Aldridge), and suddenly we think this is a home invasion. Or maybe these strange people emerging from the woods are bigots who feel same-sex couples are ruining our world. Let it be said that I did not expect these four people to be pontificating about an end of the world scenario where someone from the chosen small family unit needs to be sacrificed to save it. Will the disbelieving Eric or Andrew sacrifice Wen or themselves? Only one need be sacrificed, but why this family? Apparently Eric, Andrew and Wen show more purity and love for each other than anyone else on Planet Earth. But would anyone that pure of heart and mind really sacrifice one of their own for something seemingly unprovable? 

The other members of this Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are a nurse, Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird); an ex-convict named Redmond (former Harry Potter actor Rupert Grint showing major grit), and a slightly delirious cook who loves to feed people, Adriane (Abby Quinn). Each one asks the two dads, now bound with rope, to please consider sacrificing someone in their family to save 7 billion people! Each time one of the Four Doofuses are denied, they have to kneel, put a cloth over their heads and be bludgeoned to death by the others! Huh? Then to further prove their apocalyptic claims are true, news footage is shown on TV of tsunamis and planes falling from the sky. End of the World or some sort of clever sleight of hand? Some of the news is prerecorded, and later some of it is live. 

"Knock in the Cabin" still sort of held my interest for a while but once the plot was unraveled, I just couldn't buy it at all. The story is based on a 2018 novel by Paul G. Tremblay titled "The Cabin at the End of the World" and, though the novel is darker and more ambiguous, the story is relatively the same with changes in who survives and who dies. Director Shyamalan edges this story with very little suspense during some crucial scenes, and credibility is thrown out the window when the rules, despite being purportedly exacting visions, don't mesh with the storyline. Why would the downfall of humanity be centered on some log cabin in the middle of the woods? Why this particular couple? Why is murder a method of salvation? Shall I page Abraham from the Bible to find the answers? In Abraham's case, God merely tested the old man's obedience to the Lord. I suppose it is all Biblical at the end of the day but it doesn't jell in this movie and feels too heavily contrived, despite some urgency provided by Dave Bautista (he is becoming one hell of a character actor). All that urgency though is all for naught. God just doesn't figure in this apocalyptic equation.

Cliched small-town horror harbors some surprises

 THE VISITOR (2022)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Truly nothing escaped me about what to anticipate in "The Visitor," one of various Blumhouse horror pictures to have emerged as part of the Blumhouse Television and EPIX streaming deal. Almost from the start, I could tell where "The Visitor" was going yet how it got there really held my interest. Okay, a mildly enthused interest but an interest nonetheless. 

A newlywed couple, Robert and Maia, arrive in a small, strange town where the bartender might be a little too friendly, the hardware store owner who is a little baffled by the husband, a local priest who might be a little too holier-than-thou with respect to the Bible, and there is a cliched town historian and so on. It turns out that one of the newlyweds, Robert (Finn Jones), is seeing himself in various paintings in their new home and in other people's homes. Each painting is inscribed with the title, "The Visitor" and some sort of cryptic phrase. It is not a matter of just bearing a similar likeness - Robert looks exactly like this Visitor. Robert's wife, Maia (Jessica McNamee), senses that he's getting paranoid and that it is a result of him continuing to take his anti-anxiety medication. Their history is marred somewhat by the loss of their baby due to a miscarriage. Yet they press on and she eventually gets pregnant and all hell breaks loose involving a snake shedding its skin, frogs, locusts, etc. Nothing here you haven't seen before. 

"The Visitor" is still marginally effective and has a few jump scares that do work (no annoying zither music cues are used to highlight them) but what made the movie work is the decaying atmosphere, thanks to superb lensing by Federico Verardi (who also lensed the scary 2020 thriller "Alone"). There is a distinctly subtle muddy haze to this movie, intended or not, that embellishes the proceedings. The house they stay in doesn't feel safe (it is Maia's childhood home) and other places such as the interiors of an antique shop, the local church or the hardware store have a death-like feel to them. Also adding to the movie's frightful, unexpected conclusion is the solid work of Finn Jones (a face that is hard to forget that reminded me of Jude Law) and Jessica McNamee as the couple and the revelation of their past and future that comes as a real shock.

"The Visitor" starts off as a typical, cliched horror picture about apathetic town residents whose grins are a little too wide and where nothing is what it seems. As I mentioned earlier, the correlation between the paintings and Robert is none too surprising, at first. Once the story is really fleshed out and we arrive at the conclusion that I did not anticipate, I was taken aback. It is a dark, sick, often demonic and unsettling movie. Worth a visit.