President Evil, 2018 – ★★★

I had a gap in my diary this evening which meant a quick dealve into the weird and wonderful section of my ‘to watch’ list on ‘Tubi’. And as soon as I saw the poster and title for this film in the suggested listings. I kind of just HAD to check it out to see whether it was ‘bad…’ or ‘BAD.’ Turns out…its actually not THAT bad…but its still kind of funky in places.

I’ll cut to the chase; ‘President Evil’ is essentially a low budget Comedy Horror movie thats basically just a beat for beat parody of John Carpenters ‘Halloween’ but with a guy in a Trump mask stalking Mexicans, Latinas, Black people and Trans people. With only some mild changes to the plot of ‘Halloween’ to help differentiate it a bit.

Instead of the film taking place on ‘Halloween’ night. it opens on the results night of Reagans second term and features a young kid called David donning a Reagan mask and killing is pornstar mother ‘Scorchy Daniels’. We fast forward, and its now the 2018 midterms and David escapes, picking up a Donald Trump mask now and tracking down a Latina family who are in the process of selling his family home.

Along the way there are references to SO many other horror films, from ‘Poltergeist’ to ‘Suspiria’ and ‘Young Frankenstein’ and I kind of struggled with this one a bit as to whether I found it weirdly watchable, or just painfully derivative.

My thoughts on the script go down one of two pathways. On the one hand, literally just cribbing the plot of ‘Halloween’ and replacing the all white cast with minorities and Michael with Donald Trump, alongside cameos such as one of the doctors at the hospital ‘David’ is being held in being called ‘Doctor Hilary’, the sheriff of the town this takes place in being called ‘Sheriff Schumer’ and Dr. Loomis being replaced with a ‘Putin’ lookalike. IS about as cheap, low and basic a script writing job you can actually do. Genuinely, this is the kind of movie where ‘It writes itself’ applies SO hard, because, once you’ve downloaded the original script for ‘Halloween’, changed the names, added a couple of comedy sequences in and a couple of scenes explaining how Trumps persecuting minorities…what ACTUALLY is original here? The answer is…not that much.

On the other hand, the comedy itself is INCREDIBLY diverse, primarily, its aiming for lowest common denominator, cheap pop culture gags and physical comedy. But then, and this is the weird part, in places the film gets weirdly lucid, bordering on a 4th wall break, where it feels like the script writers basically channelling their rage and fury about the situation directly to the audience using the character as a mouthpiece. and these moments are some of the most genuinely sincere, and at times bleakly hilarious moments of the film. self deprocating, scathing, black comedy about how the (then and now) president is harming communities by tearing US citizens from their families for LITERALLY no reason other than racist appeasement is VERY much present here, and it feels almost like the script writer is trying to stealth in Anti-trump rhetoric in between scenes of ‘David’ the Trump killer playing with a Putin lookalike in the woods, or deep cut ex-nazi gags.

Its so weird, because it feels almost like this was co-written between two VERY different people. One guy who just wanted to get a script in the can and hit Taco Bell before 6pm. and another guy who saw this as his one and only opportunity to put his opinions about the horrendous things going on in front of an audience, and decided that being sneaky about it was probably the better pathway. Its a bit jarring to tell you the truth because, when this thing is actually trying some of the more intellectually motivated bits, I found it actually kind of engaging and funny. But when its not doing that, its the worst excesses of American obnoxious style comedy and was border unwatchable. Not helped either by the fact they, at least a couple of times, go for low hanging fruit and do stereotyping, which I think here was intended to be taken as a ‘Im a lefty who KNOWS this is racist, and is essentially parodying the kind of guy who WOULD be racist’ but they dont really commit to the bit enough, which just makes it feel like they’re being weirdly out of tone and racist/transphobic/homophobic as a result.

That being said, regardless of the above, this is still fundamentally just a re-framing of a classic. and while its ABSOLUTELY nowhere near as good as the original ‘Halloween’ with its DNA being so close, its still kind of hard not to enjoy it to a point.

Other than that, this is pretty much your bog standard low budget horror film for the most part, the directions a bit shakey and not exactly ‘revolutionary’ but Richard Lowry is a pretty well established director for this kind of level of film making, and he commands his crew about as well as i’d expect for a production of this scope and budget. Not brilliant, by NO means the worst i’ve seen.

Cine? is actually kind of surprising. while the framing is great with a few instances of wobbly cameras, bad white balancing and ropey effects. I actually thought the lighting was handled very well for a production of this scope, the colour use was half decent and theres actually some pretty impressive sequence arrangements here. I wont say its brilliant at all, but it feels sturdy for the most part, the kind of film that isnt taking too many risks, but hey, you want a ‘Trump slasher flick’ this does exactly what it sets out to do.

The edit is a little all over the place, with a few wobbly cuts here and there and, as mentioned some of the effects work isnt great, though the big finale does handle itself quite well! Sequences are a little loose, but i’ve seen worse. its passable, but largely kind of unremarkable.

Performance wise? Sitara Attaie is actually VERY surprisingly decent as this films ‘Laurie Strode’ (here called ‘Lana’) she gets some of the best dialogue in the entire film and she absolutely embraces the tone and goofiness this films going for. I think she really nailed the brief, shes a great physical performer, emotes brilliantly and delivered her lines with conviction even in some of the sillier parts of the movie. She gave me Leslie Nielson vibes, which again. For a film like this?! surprised me.

That being said, Ryan Quinn Adams as ‘David’ the killer ‘Trump’ was equally fantastic, emoting with rubber in ways that I didnt know rubber could emote, He has some great comic timing on his physical performance that really engaged me. Could things have been pushed further? absolutely. But hey, this is low budget cinema. I’ll take a win where I can get it.

The soundtrack is essentially a ‘horrors greatest hits’ with soundalike tracks from classic horror movies from the 70s through the 2010’s. they usually use the music for comic effect, playing it in key moments where its ‘fitting’ for the scene. I wasnt too offended, it worked about as well as it could have honestly.

All in all? its a mess, its awkward, and the humours a minefield of gut laughs to just plain unfunny and offensive. But despite its flaws, there was something about this movie that just kind of…Charmed me, for lack of a better word. I think it may be the fact that there IS clearly SOME brains working on this thing behind the scenes, and that it plays itself as exactly what it is, without trying to be something its not. it comes in, does what it needs to do, and gets out. And I appreciate it when films dont try to ‘guild the lilly’ too much in that sense.

Would I recommend it?…possibly?! I think this one would have a very specific audience, but I think it could maybe pair up with something like ‘Wacko!’ or something similar. definitely one where your milage may vary. but there was enough to like here that I could see myself catching this one again.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/president-evil/

by tytdreviews

Reckoning Day, 2002 – ★½

The first feature film from Julian Gilby, ‘Reckoning Day’ has been described by some as a ’16mm student film that’s been stretched.’ and having sat and watched it tonight, im kind of inclined to agree…in every sense of the interpretation…

Clocking in at WELL over 100 minutes long, which it ABSOLUTELY didnt need to be, the plot for this thing is fairly straightforward. But that doesnt stop the film makers from overconvoluting this thing to the point that you can quite easily lose track as to what is even supposed to be going on at any given moment.

The film opens with a prologue set almost a year and a half before the events of the film proper. In crawling text it’s established that a top UK assassin by the name of ‘Charles’ grew bored of the work offered in the UK and was eventually courted by US ‘Investors’ to take on more varied and interesting hitman work. Eventually, the portfolio became so diverse and complex, that he needed a team to help keep on top of balancing the books. bringing in several old colleagues to help him keep on top of things.

Eventually however, the rival gangs and hitman service offerers became frustrated that Charles and the team were cleaning up quite nicely and taking all the work off them, so; they turned them in to the US secret service. Who began to try and hunt down the gang, closing off all forms of exit from the states and eventually forcing the gang to flee into the Rocky mountains, in the hopes of reaching Canada.

However, due to cross collaboration, and work with an equally impressive hitman named ‘Ed’ the Canadian secret service were onto the gang too and after a few days in the mountains, both secret services found the gang and a bloody gunfight ensued in which the body count hit both sides.

Flash forward 17 months, and in England one of the few remaining Gang members by the name ‘Stuart’ is slowly picking off old members of the gang with his apprentice ‘Ross’ and the pair appear to be looking for something. Meanwhile ‘Ed’ who has now fully recovered from his battle with Charles and co, recieves a phonecall from a secret service representative called ‘Brian’ who informs him that Stuart is going around killed all the old gang members, and is seemingly looking for something.

Brian informs Ed that it appears like Charles and Stuart were working together on synthesizing a new drug from a HIGHLY toxic plant they were dubbing ‘Unseen Force’ when injected at the correct dose, the user suddenly gains an extremely heightened sense of awareness, their reflexes enhance 300%. they become resistant to most forms of pain. they can survive SIGNIFICANT injury and continue as if nothing happend. Basically, it turns them into a semi invincible killing machine. with the only way to kill them being destroying the head, completley dismembering the body, or an overdose of ‘unseen force’ which, while a LOT less toxic when correctly synthisized…is still VERY toxic if taken consistently or in large doses.

So; Ed, Brian and assistant James head out to try and protect the last member of the gang still standing, while Stuart, Ross and the rest of the gang head out to take him out on behalf of a shady benefactor. with guns, guts and gore galore for the rest of the runtime.

And…theres no real way to sugar coat this, in my opinion, the films a mess. At times, it feels like someone figuring out how to put a movie together…But for the most part, it just feels like some friends messing about with a camera trying to recreate some of their favourite movie scenes with their own personal touches to it. With mixed results.

The script is INCREDIBLY bloated, WELL beyond the point of reason. this should have been 80-90 minutes with 8 minutes of titles and credits and not a MINUTE longer. at 103 minutes, its a slog. its repetative, incoherent, the act structuring is border rigormortis induced. the plotting jumps all over the place, with no real sense of timing, location or spacing that these events happen in. It feels like everything happens in just a single day, despite the fact that cant possibly be the case.

The characters all feel half borrowed from mainstream films, and half built on the personalities of the people playing the characters, the dialogue makes ‘Garth Marenghis darkplace’ look like ‘Hamlet’. the ending is dissatisfying, the pacings atrocious. and It quite quickly becomes confusing because most of the extras in the film wear baliclavas making it almost impossible to guess really whether they’re masked men we’re rooting for, or ones we’re hoping dont shoot our key characters…

Where the script works for me, feels largely accidental, line readings that made me shoot water out of my mouth and all over my TV, fight scenes that left my jaw on the floor (and not because they were ‘good’) the moments that this film bomb…pretty much on all fronts, is some of the most hilarious and bizarre moments i’ve seen in a long time.

The directions inconsistent, as mentioned this feels less like a film maker expressing their ‘voice’ through the camera, and more like a bunch of film students trying to do what their favourite directors do, but with no idea WHY the directors chose to shoot things the way they did. it feels mindless in places, While making notes for this movie, I repeatedly had to wind back. Not because the film got too busy, but because MY brain went on autopilot just watching random camera swings, crash zooms and strange swaps between camera format…because for some reason, this film was shot on both 16mm film and mini DV tape…I have no idea why…but there you go.

Cast direction is hilariously awful. you’ve got a group of gents who I could best describe as ‘the scariest geek bar pub quiz team you’ve ever seen’ they dont animate particualarly well, they mumble 80% of the lines in this thing, even the choreographed fight scenes have to be kept tight and frenzied to mask the fact that these guys just couldnt quite figure out what steps to do things in, and how to frame it to make it feel weighty and impactful.

Cine is ‘passable’ most of the shots are framed about right, they use B-roll and some early CG effects to try and give the ‘look’ of the film a bit of a boost, but I was unimpressed by the attempts at moody lighting, and while they do bother to experiment a bit, they dont really try to intigrate any of that ‘experimentation’ into THEIR film. they literally just right scenes where its like ‘You’ve just been spiked with acid’ *cue 5 minute trippy ‘shot on DV’ art house sequence that is in NO way connected to the actual movie. Its hit and miss for the most part, but not my cup of tea at all persoanlly.

Same goes for the edit, it feels like it was assembled in a woodchipper. the gunfight sequences are basically seizure enducing, with little rhyme or reason. scenes run for random runtimes that are equally bloated and feel inconsistent. This isnt an edit where the scenes feel like the editor knew where to naturally end them. It feels like an edit where the editor put everything down on a timeline, chopped off the ‘action’ and ‘cut’ moments, and when things felt a bit uneven, he’d just toss in random B-roll from other scenes to try and create a sense of dramatic faux emotional tension…or he’d do a crazy freakout art piece…again, it wasnt really for me.

Performance wise, everyone is hobbled by horendous ADR. the less said about the ENTIRE cast the better. But I will specifically single out Dominic Alan-Smith as ‘Stuart’ who may well be my favourite Assassin in the entirity of UK cinema. a quiet, dry, sarcastic performance that absolutely isnt ‘good’ in my opinion…but is ABSOLUTELY memorable in the best possible ways.

Throw in an ‘alright’ score thats maybe a tad generic but ultimately passable. and you have ‘Reckoning Day’. A film that I personally couldnt wait to get to the end of. Its a film that feels like a slog to get through, but it rewards your perseverence with some of the most brilliantly unintentional moments of humour i’ve ever seen. weird line deliveries, strange physical movements, odd edits, bizarre camera choices are peppered throughout the entire runtime. and acted almost like a mouthful of water in the desert every 10-15 minutes or so. THAT is what kept me watching, and THAT is probably the strongest thing that’ll make me revisit this in future.

With a group of friends and a case of beer? this could be an AMAZING night for the lads and lasses. But flying sobre and solo? you’d have more fun watching traffic.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/reckoning-day/

by tytdreviews

Metropolis, 1927 – ★★★★

I last watched ‘Metropolis’ about 15-20 years ago when beginning to dip my toe into ‘Silent era’ cinema. Having had a somewhat positive experience with ‘Nosferatu’ I decided that jumping into a film that, even to this day, is lauded as a revolutionary work of science fiction, Was probably the best next logical step.

Unfortunately; at the time, I didnt realise the intricate history of ‘Metropolis’ “Print status” I’d really just assumed that there were maybe one or two cuts of the film circulating in different quality levels, and that it didnt really matter what you put on because, at its core, its still the same movie.

This proved to be a HUGE mistake on my part, as I just grabbed the nearest available copy of ‘Metropolis’ that I had, which was a random ‘public domain’ print found on one of those old Mill Creek ’50 SCI-FI CLASSICS’ sets…The print was heavily washed out, VERY damaged, made up largely of still photos and having now actually taken the time to look into the situation ‘Metropolis’ uniquely holds. VERY badly edited. By the time the end credits rolled around I had almost NO idea why this film had EVER been successful, I had NO idea what was going on, and I cursed the wasted 90-110 minutes i’d given to sit through it.

Well, jump forward to this year, and Kino Lobar was having a sale on most of their titles, and I spotted ‘The Complete Metropolis’ among the titles on discount. Curious to see what the dillio was with it, I inevitably fell down a rabbit hole, that ultimately led me to pick up ‘The Complete Metropolis’ and to give the film another chance.

For those uninitiated, ‘Metropolis’ premiered in 1927 with a 153 minute cut that nearly bankrupted the studio Fritz Lang produced it for, but ultimately was a rowsing success in Europe, putting Langs name on the map. But when it came to international distribution, Paramount Pictures wernt happy with the runtime for ‘Metropolis’ nor were they particularly thrilled with the core plot and beliefs of the film, which is rife with socialist, marxist, anti capitalist rhetoric.

So, Paramount had Lang cut the film down, then, Paramount themselves cut the film down…and THEN local distributors across the Americas, parts of Europe and Asia would cut the film down AGAIN. Leaving GOD knows how many ‘alternate’ cuts of ‘Metropolis’ in circulation. The original unedited ‘Premiere’ cut of the film was pretty much lost to time, as was most of the production notes for the film including scripts…and so for a time, noone ACTUALLY knew how long or short ‘Metropolis’ was ACTUALLY supposed to be…Oh…and for reference? by the time ‘Metropolis’ finally DID hit the US, ‘The Jazz Singer’ came out and pretty much destroyed it at the box office. *womp womp*

In 1968 a 4 year project was launched to try and restore the film to its longest possible runtime, which, due to the lack of production materials made it very difficult to figure out exactly what scenes went where and how close they were to actually completing the film. Then in 1984, after a bidding war with David Bowie for the rights, Georgio Moroder did a further restoration, increasing the runtime further, but in the process adding new effects, tinting the film and adding a completely new soundtrack. For a time this was considered the most ‘complete’ version of the film…even if it had technically been ‘George Lucas’d’ in the process…

Then in 2001, with new resources, another attempt was made at producing a ‘definitive’ cut of ‘Metropolis’ which garnered even more footgae to be returned. alongside the first recording of the original score to the film, a score that hadnt been heard since its 1927 premiere. Doing this really helped the restoration team, as, without a script to work from to piece together the various fragments. the score (which included scene timings) was used as a base with which the footage for the film sat on top and kept pace.

But that brings us to ‘The Complete Metropolis’, released in 2010, after the recovery of a print from Argentina that contained a whopping 25 minutes of previously lost footage, almost a fifth of the films full runtime. It was in TERRIBLE shape (essentially it was a absolutely trashed 35mm print, copied for safety to 16mm with no pre-cleaning…its rough to say the least) But it allowed the restoration teams the opportunity to rearrange the film back into its correct order, to remove a lot of caption cards, and; barring a remaining 5 minutes or so of missing footage (a scene set in a church, a brief fight sequence and approx 30 seconds of stray frames across the whole films runtime) It allowed, for the first time in 83 years for Langs original vision to be seen as close to as intended as possible.

Can I say hand on heart that this is an immaculate restoration? Given the sources for the footage, honestly; its astounding. But if you didnt KNOW the journey that this films been on to look even REMOTELY how it does in this 2010 remaster, you’d think they hadnt bothered restoring it. where the footage was preserved and in good quality, it looks phenominal. But that Argentinian footage (which again, I cannot stress enough how much of a miracle they’ve worked on restoring it) is jarring to say the least, with ‘rain like’ tramlines running down the majority of the frame and, due to shots being reframed in the argentinian print, huge black barrings all over the frame where segments had been cropped out. Its rough…a miracle…but rough.

Nontheless, I decided to give ‘Metropolis’ another chance, and I absolutely do not regret my decision to do that. The ‘Complete’ cut brings with it ACTUAL plotting a pacing, and feels SO much less like a super8mm highlights reel, and SO much more like how people had always described it to me. A miraculous work for the time, This is a work that was AT LEAST 40 years ahead of its time. and an ‘Epic’ in every sense of the word.

The films set in a ‘not too distant’ dystopic future where society has fallen into two classes, an underground ‘Worker’ class who live in large underground cities and power ‘The Machines’. and an above ground affluent society who strive and grow off the backs of the ‘Workers’ who’s machines power ‘Metropolis’ an illuminated utopia likened to the original ‘Tower of Babel’.

The film (somewhat crudely I feel) splits these two factions into ‘The Hands’ (the workers), and ‘The Brains’ who are the teams who manage the workers and help further expand the business of ‘Metropolis’. The workers children are forced to stay at home and do chores until they’re old enough to work, and non of the ‘workers’ are allowed to leave their undercity. meanwhile, the children of ‘Metropolis’ are academically bread to take up the mantle of their fathers and mothers within the city, and spend their days idilically engaging in sports, academia…and seemingly in the case of the gents, chasing petticoated ladies around gorgeous royal gardens.

Our story specifically follows the ‘Fredersens’ Jon and Freder. Freder is Jons son and, as mentioned…being a young adult in ‘Metropolis’ is pretty blissful. But during one of his regular ”idillic garden chases’ he’s stopped by a young woman shrouded with children in rags who she refers to as his ‘brothers and sisters’ before being escorted away. Captivated by the intense beauty of this mysterious woman, Freder decides to leave the gardens and hunt this woman down.

After some searching he finds himself in the undercity and witnesses a horrendous accident caused by the exhausted workforce. Traumatized by the absolute abuse of these people and sights he’d never previously seen, he rushes to speak to his father Jon about the incident, who’s dismissive of him, and more upset that his secretary Johnasen didnt know anything about the work incident.

It becomes quite clear that Jon is a ruthless and tyranical business owner purposfully surpressing the working class to help further line his pockets and keep the business of ‘Metropolis’ expanding, and that no number of lives cost will be enough to shake him from that mindset. So, Freder decides to head back into the undercity to further see how the workers live.

Where he finds abhorrent living condtions, workers constantly on the brink of collapse, death, sickness and worse. Swapping place with an exhausted worker, he learns that the workers are in fact organising, and later that night in the catacombs below the workers city, Freder heads down with his fellow brothers and comes face to face once again with the mysterious woman from the gardens, ‘Maria’.

Maria leads with the mantra ‘The Mediator between the head and hands MUST be the heart’ a call to the workers to not give in to mindless violence at the horrendousness of their situation, but instead to look for compromise and understanding with the folks above to find a new way of working that doesnt surpress workers rights, while also allowing greater opportunities for the underclass. Freder is captivated, and on approaching Maria, she confirms that she firmly believes HE is in fact ‘the heart’ that will ultimately help broker a new era of prosperity between the workers and the residents of ‘Metropolis’

Meanwhile Jon recieves two ‘diagrams’ from the pockets of deceased workers, and…unable to figure out what they are, he visits the loca ‘mad scientist’ for this film ‘Rotwang’. Here its revealed that Rotwang was once in love with a woman named ‘Hel’ who left him to marry Jon and who died while giving birth to Freder. Rotwang informs Jon that the diagrams are in fact maps of the catacombs and that the workers clearly seem to be congregating for something. Before revealing his latest invention, a machine man he hopes will allow him to ressurect ‘Hel’ for himself, arguing that Jon lost Hel and gained Freder, and he intends to have Hel again.

Jon and Rotwang follow the maps and arrive at the latest meeting of Maria and the workers, on hearing their plan for a peaceful protest. Jon is horrified and orders Rotwang to give the machine man the face of Maria instead of Hel, to kidnap Maria, and use the Machine Maria to lead the workers into a full blown uprising of Metropolis, giving Jon enough manufactured consent to retaliate on the workers and further surpress them.

But unbenownst to Jon, Rotwang has his own plans and programmes the machine man to not only lead an uprising of the workers, but to corrupt and deconstruct the residents of Metropolis too by causing them to fight amongst themselves…with the ultimate goal being the destruction of the undercity, Metropolis, Jon and Freder so that only Rotwang and his automaton remain. With their fowl machinations in place, it will fall down to Freder, Josephat and a handful of helpful souls to try and rescue Maria, halt the uprising and save Metropolis before the corrupted Maria runs BOTH sides of the city into the ground.

And now having seen the full film as near enough to as intended, I can absolutely see why this film was praised as heavily as it was both at the time, and in the present. I would honestly stop short of calling this film ‘witchcraft’ because, for 1927? the effects, cinematography, tone and style displayed is UNREAL. it feels like a film that fell out of a parallel reality.

Given all the lead up to this point in my review, I dont want to shorthand things too much, but honestly, there is VERY little I actually disliked about this film.

The direction is astounding, genuinely ahead of its time not only in the way that scenes flow effortlessly to and from one another, but in the effects used, which again, for 1927 were INSANE. the cast direction and set design which feels like Lang took the german expressionist movement and postulated ‘What if this, but in the 32nd century?’ It all just hangs together so flawlessly, the effortlessness with which Lang commits not just art, but revolutions within the medium of the art is frankly breath taking. I found myself in awe of the production, only pausing to occasionally realise that some of the most iconic cinema of the last 70 years had clearly been inspired by the actions of this one production.

Given its timing in the move between silent to ‘talkie’ cinema, ‘Metropolis’ feels like a evolutionary apex, the peak of this kind of film making, and a shock to the standard medium that I genuinely do not believe I will see again. This film is as important to film history as the move from acoustic to electric for music, or the dadaist movement to litrerature and painting. An entire MOVEMENT and way of working reinforced and baked into a single work. Incredible.

The lighting? phenominal, the effects work? phenominal,the cinematography? while hard to say on the rougher restoration footage, what is here is incredible. Set design? Phenominal, the performances?! GENUINELY haunting in places, exaggeratory in all the best ways and truthfully remarkable, you will see faces and performances in this film that take on an almost etherial quality. which, when married up to the absolutely gorgeous scoring of Gottfried Huppertz, creates an atmosphere unlike anything i’ve encountered before.

The issues that I have with this film are few and far between, but do ultimately stop me from giving this film full marks (or as close to full marks as i’d be willing to give) and almost all of them lie in the scripting.

Chief amongst is the runtime itself. While I appreciate that this is a work from a different time, and that silent era cinema was often treated as a ‘night out’ in every sense of the word. at 2 hours and 33 minutes long. I feel the film overstays its welcome by about 10-15 minutes narratively. A lot of scenes are drawn out, and I appreciate that audiences back then needed a bit of extra handholding to get them through this new(ish) medium. But in 2025, with my fried attention span, I started to struggle by the halfway point when a basic ‘escape’ scene was taking 2-3 times longer than it needed to. And im generally a quite patient person, so I have NO idea how modern audiences would percieve this film.

In addition, clocking in at over 150 minutes, means that I probably wont get the time to revisit this classic very often, as these days I struggle to fit a 100 minute film in…letalone 150 minutes. which is a shame as I feel had it run even to 120 minutes, there would be way more of a chance that I could squeeze it in somewhere…

While the plotting itself is pretty solid, the characters engaging and the act structuring *slightly* lopsided, but utlimately well paced out. the other issue I had with the film was its somewhat mixed messaging on its core values. The film clearly portrays anti-capitalist, pro socialist sentiment. Hell; the entire films plot revolves around the son of a capitalist discovering the exploitation of the worker for profit and spending the rest of the film trying to bring humanity and empathy to the capitalists, while trying to give the worker a sense of value and equity better balanced against the capitalists.

However; as a socialist myself, I struggled a bit with the way the film attempts to realise this vision, essentially portraying the capitalists as folks who would gladly drown an entire city of people for their bottom line…unless one of their children happens to be caught in the crossfire, at which point suddenly OH NO! CAPITALISM BAD?!?

The main plotline of Freder suddenly leading the revolution based on a 10 hour workshift is laughable (you’ll believe a nepo baby can fly!), ‘Good Maria’ and ‘Bad Maria’ are both flawed with their approaches to change, but the idea that ‘Bad Marias’ revolution approach is somehow the ‘evil’ answer given what the capitalists are doing to the underworld workers is again, equally laughable. Not to mention the ‘hands’ and ‘minds’ concept is HORRENDOUSLY classist, assuming that workers cant think and thinkers cant work…

…I feel like Jon as a character in this gets off WAY too lightly, a slimey, abhorrent business man willing to murder workers and children to suit socio political ends, is essentially given an ‘all is forgiven’ ending despite his ‘moment of revelation’ having NOTHING to do with the workers in the undercity and more to do with how his boy, the only remnant Jon has of his deceased wife may be at risk ALSO!

In a just world Jon would have been taken out of the picture in the final act and Josephat would have brokered a new era of piece with the workers promising ‘never again.’ Instead; the film gives a lot of bluster about ‘violence not being the answer’ and ‘the heart will moderate’ before ultimately trying to cram in a ‘both sides’ approach to conflict resolution.

I dont know how the people of metropolis live on past the end of this movie. But I DO know, that if the person im attempting to usher in a new era with was shown to have been complicit in the attempted drowning of all my friends, family and kids…and that he was PROUD of that…well, unless he had a DAMN good reason, it would be the beginning and end of diplomacy.

DESPITE this. I had a very VERY enjoyable time with ‘Metropolis’ and I highly recommend. searching out the ‘Complete’ cut if your curious and want to learn more. Its so close to being a near perfect movie, its scary. and absolutely worth your time in my opinion.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/metropolis/

by tytdreviews

The Mummy, 1959 – ★★★★½

Way back in the mists of time, when I was first dipping a toe into the world of ‘Film & Film theory’, I enrolled in a college film and media course, and the first module of that course was analysing changes in cinematography, style, culture and media literacy across 3 different eras using the same film as a grounding. and one of the first films we attempted to deconstruct was ‘The Mummy (1932)’, ‘The Mummy (1959)’ and ‘The Mummy (1999)’.

This was not only one of my first Hammer horror films (alongside Frankenstein and Dracula) but was also one of the first times that I began to develop a sense for the developing art of film as a medium. how film makers learned from film makers on how to make film tell a story more through the visuals, than by just simply telling the audience what was happening. I dont think I could have dealt with a better triptic honestly.

This film came about well after Universal studios and Hammer films had ‘Hammered’ out an agreement between themselves allowing Hammer to continue to adapt the ‘classic’ monsters without fear of litigation from Universal, and in exchange Universal got the international distribution rights to (most) hammer films going into the mid 1960s. And what Hammers ‘The Mummy’ does have going for it, is nearly 25+ years of Universal ‘Mummy’ films and sequels, plus a few 40s and 50s horror movies with similar themes, to cherry pick the best bits out of to create, in effect a kind of ‘Greatest hits’ mummy movie.

The plot picks up in late 19th century Egypt as father and son duo Stephen and John Banning are on an expidition to find the secret tomb of ‘Princess Ananka’. John is determined that the tomb will be located almost imminantly, but a leg injury has him stuck in bed, in a tent at the edge of the expedition. Eventually, the expedition strikes good fortune and a tomb IS indeed discovered. but Johns reluctance to leave the site for medical aid until the tomb has been analysed, documented and key items removed for further inspection, has left him permanently disabled.

Before going much further, a local by the name of Mehemet Bey stops the team, warning them that disturbing the tomb could bring TERRIBLE consiquences. But this is a group of British chaps in the late 19th century…So he may as well have not bothered for all the good it did to warn them. However, things DO go quite wrong during the removals, when an unknown force attacks Stephen leaving him ranting like a maniac about unknown evil forces.

The gang get home to London, and some time later we’re reintroduced to the Bannings, John hasnt spoken to his father in a very long time due to his mental health issues since the ‘experience’, but he’s been summoned to speak to him urgently, at which point its revealed that he senses a great evil is returning again.

We’re then flashed back as a LOT of exposition reveals that, while inside the tomb, Stephen had read a ‘scroll of life’ which when read aloud accidentally ressurected the tombs ‘protector’ Kharis. Kharis was a high priest in the ancient egyption times who had a deep love for Ananka, and on Anankas death, he attempted to use the scoll of life to ressurect her. but got caught and was murdered as punishment and left to rot in Anankas chamber.

Little did the British explorers realise, that Kharis was there and that they’ve brought him back to London for more examination. Mehemet has ALSO come to London at roughly the same time Kharis is being transported and using the ‘Scroll of life’ he ressurects the mummy, to bring vengence to the ‘Infidels’ who desicrated Anankas chambers. Leading to all kinds of Mummy related shenanigans, ESPECIALLY when Isobel Banning (Johns Sister) enters the picture, and its revealed she has an uncanny resemblence to Princess Ananka.

And honestly? I have VERY little to complain about with this one. ‘The Mummy’ is probably my least favourite of the Universal monster movies, and most adaptations or offshoots of ‘The Mummy’ story, I find just drag atrociously, to me? I find them to be very ‘style over substance’ movies…usually one or two good bits of plotting or storytelling wrapped up in 70-90 minutes of brilliant direction and cine…which is fine if you like looking at pretty things, but not so good if you actually want to be captivated by the story. In particualr, the Universal ‘Mummy’ for me struggles on two counts, taking the sluggish elements of ‘Dracula’ and the blunt elements of ‘Frankenstein’ and shoving them together into a feature so slow, the monster could probably outrun it with ease.

Mercifully, BECAUSE the Hammer version gets the pick of the buffet on plot elements and story lines, we have what I would consider probably the best mummy movie made to date…Is it cheating that its essentially stitched together from 6-8 other mummy and mummy adjacent movies narratively?…maybe…but when its this good, who cares!?

The scripts razor sharp, expertly paced and doesnt hang around for a minute longer than it needs to. the characters all have a decent level of complexity, the plotting makes sense, feels naturalistic and for the time really pushed the boundaries of cinema. the tone is very dark in places, but it isnt afraid to contrast it with a little bit of humour here and there, but unlike ‘Horror of Dracula’ and ‘Curse of Frankenstein’ the humour in this is a lot more subtle and way less overt (no random burgermeisters pulling daft faces in THIS film!) the dialogues superb, the ending, satisfying and well handled.

Literally my only gripe here, is that for SOME BIZARRE reason, they decided to go all in on stereotying and racism towards the egyptians and…for SOME reason…the Irish. I dont know why, it doesnt suite the pictures tone or needs to do what it did. But they repeatedly cut back to painfully racist Irish stereotypes in the form of transporters who ‘hick’ there way through several scenes slurring and looking rough around the edges…the scenes in egypt display several ‘white’ workers who’ve been ‘tanned’ and they COMPLETELY gloss over the fact that John and co are essentially using hired slave labour for their expadition. I know its a film of its time, and its important that we reflect on films that do this to show WHY we should never do what we did again. But its just so surreal to see this film do what its doing when it really didnt need to…

Beyond that however, this is quitessential Hammer Horror. the direction is of a company in its stride Terence Fischer and Jimmy Sangster were now three films into this series and were in their element. With gorgeous, rich and lavish direction that commands a real sense of vibrance and talent. Of the four original ‘adaptation’ Hammer Horror films, I think this one is the most pleasing visually, with the cast all well aware of their screen presence, extravigant set spaces that are utilised superbly and a clearly developed hand on the rudder uniting sound, lighting, set work and camera operations into probably the single best shot Hammer film in the companies history.

The cine too is superb. rich colour usage and a keen eye to lighting and shadow work, render this film a feast for the eyes. compositions are astounding, managing to create striking visual imagery AND hearty amounts of experimentation without ever really dropping the ball or making the end product look or feel cheap. Its an ‘epic’ in horror movie form. and a master class on how to structure your scenes and visually tell a story. all wrapped up in an incredibly tight edit that does what it needs to do and leaves the audience wanting more.

Performance wise, this is the 3rd outing for Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing under Hammer, and as always they’re superb. I think I honestly prefer Lee’s ‘Mummy’ to his ‘Frankenstein’ everyone understands the tone needed for this one, theres a sincerity and genuineness in the performances here that havent been seen in previous entries. Not a bad performance in the entire cast run (barring the racist characturing) its amazing.

Only enhanced by a top tier soundtrack that matches the tone and energy of this film perfectly, and results in one of the finest Hammer scores recorded. and thats not even mentioning its implementation IN the film. which elevates the whole thing to the next level.

‘The Mummy’ completes the trifecta of Hammers early monster movies. and while they would go on to adapt other Universal Monster movies going forward, these first 3 outings really changed the face of horror and UK cinema, essentially acting as the catalyst that would eventually become the 70s amacus/folk horror movement.

This? is a masterpiece of horror cinema, and I dont use that term lightly. a vividly rich, razor focussed and lavish viewing experience that more or less does everything it can do WELL above a base standard. If you have even a passing interest in 50s horror, the first three Hammer horror films should be on your list by default. But this one especially.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-mummy-1959/1/

by tytdreviews

The Substance, 2024 – ★★★★

‘The Substance’ is a scathing look into the world of beauty standards for women, and how the industry (and men) can hold very drastic opinions of women dependent solely on their looks and age.

The film follows Elisabeth Sparkle a morning TV fitness instructor who, while successful, is not giving the right kind of ‘image’ the network want. While theres nothing at all wrong with Liz, the network believe that the show needs ‘sexing’ up. and that Liz, who’s been doing the show since the 80s and very much keeps that aesthetic in her show. Just isnt the kind of youthful raw energy they want for the show.

On the verge of being let go, Liz begins contemplating her appearence and age deeply, worried that her looks are what give her value in the eyes of her fans and audience. While deep in thought, she ends up in a car crash, and things begin to spiral when one of the doctors who sees her gives her a mysterious pendrive containing an advert for ‘The Substance’ but little other information than it promises to give you ‘the best version of you’

Curious, Liz enquires about it, and a short time later she recieves a key card to a back ally locker where her first supply of ‘The Substance’ is ready for collection. The process is simple. Liz takes an ‘activator’ which causes her body and conciousness to split, creating an idealized version of Liz thats youthful, perky and full of attitude.

However, in exchange, a balance needs to be struck. This new body and persona (christned ‘Sue’) can only stay active for 7 days, and needs daily spinal fluid injections from Liz’s unconcious corpse. After 7 days, Sue needs to transfuse her blood back into Lizs lifeless body to reactivate Liz for 7 days, before the process can repeat again. and they’re VERY keen to stress that 7 day limit. Not even an hour longer than that. when the times up you’ve got to swap, or there will be consiquences.

Well; as you can imagine Sue becomes a smash hit and takes over Lizs role on the morning gym programme, sexing it up and losing all the heart in the process. But Sue begins to become addicted to her new, more active, sexier and interesting life. So much so that she begins neglecting Liz’s body and attempting to extend the time she can stay as Sue BEYOND the 7 days…with horrifying results.

I really quite enjoyed ‘The Substance’ its grounded firmly in the works of Cronenberg and Brian Yuzna but with a VERY modernist take on the body horror subgenre. in some ways to its detriment (in my opinion)

The script is positively SCATHING in places, and that anger over the various beauty standards held towards women, the idea that women can be abused, ignored and simply forgotten purely for their age and looks. the sexist attitudes (both conciously and subconciously) that men have towards women. and even the idea of women being unable to love or make connections due to their feelings about themselves all play a critical part in making this film as interesting as it is.

The pacing is pretty pitch perfect, the act structuring is consistent and solid. I really enjoyed the first 2 acts, though (probably a surprise to regular viewers/readers) I wasnt really won over by the 3rd act, the first 2 acts did such a wonderful job of keeping the twists and turns interesting and mixing subtle and overt tones and messages coming thick and fast. But the 3rd act (while impressive visually) kind of hard left turns into a somewhat surreal and gorier experience that I really wasnt expecting (Mild spoilers: But I personally subscribe to the theory that everything from when Sue retakes ‘The Substance’ onwards is playing out in Sues mind and that she basically just died in liz’s bathroom, as that final 10-15 minutes is WILDLY out of tone with the rest of the film and goes off in strange and unusual ways.)

The characters are all richly developed, with even the shallow characters having distinct layers of slime in their make up. At its core this is a character piece centered around two halves of a broken person slowly falling into loathing with each other when their faults become insufferable to each other. Its a cautionary tale on learning to love yourself for who you are and finding balance between understanding and appreciating aging and finding joy in the things that come with it, while also embracing virility and your inner youth. Learning ultimately to balance those two worlds so that you dont either become a MASSIVE old weirdo, or a MASSIVE old fart in the process.

In fact, one of my only criticisms of this film from a script perspective, is that I think it would have been nice to have seen Sue use the fact she has Liz’s years of experience and memories to manipulate people to do what she wanted. its quite common for young people to be underestimated or seen as manipulatable, and I think, even if it had only been for a couple of scenes. Giving Sue the ability to use her looks and Lizs knowledge to blackmail, intimidate or manipulate her situations could have given us a bit more complexity to the story.

As for the direction, im somewhat polarized. It cant be denied really that on a technical level, the direction is superb, crisp, vivid, colourful, open to experimentation. On that level I absolutely loved it. However, on a personal level. I feel it wasnt quite for me. the main issue I had is simply that a key part of the direction is a strong and sharp polarisation between ultra clean and clinical stylisation, and disgusting filth, blood, guts and gore.

Im not against striking contrasts in direction, in fact, in most cases im supportive of contrasts helping to had shade and depth to what could otherwise be a pretty one note and flat experience. However, the key for me is that those contrasts, like fashion, need to compliment each other. they can be direct opposites, but they need to work together to create a sense of visual coherency. and here, the extremes are SO extreme in places, that I didnt really feel like it worked all that well. the two styles dont compliment each other in my opinion, and whether that was intentional or not. It just made me feel like I was watching 2 different directors at work for most of the first act. with a sense of coherency finally landing about halfway through the second act. at which point things kind of settled in a little bit. But on that front I found it a bit bumpy to start with.

Direction of the cast is superb, no notes. its a decent balance of set/prop work, visual effects and some light improvisation that compliments the darker and more humerous moments well. I also have to give MAJOR props to the production for largely sticking with physical effects over digital ones. that really helped give the film a sense of realism that otherwise would have been lost I fear.

The cine is equally astounding, clean crisp, hyper colourful and apurposfully airbrushed style clashing agaisnt gritty realism to create a wonderful visual experience. My only gripe here really being that they rely a little too heavily on the depth of the frame and in framing things to have equal paralells across the frame breadth which, absolutely added to the more clinical moments of the direction, but felt a bit overused after a while, it would have been nice to have more intimate moments with the cast members and locations, other than these wide, deep set scenes where everyones so distant. I appreciate what they were trying to do with the cine, but the scripting more than sold me on Liz’s Isolationism honestly.

Performance wise, Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley were both superb, if I had to favour one. I’d say Moore gets the meatier share of the dialogue and narrative and as such gets more range to work. She’s really astounding in this, probably a career peak for me. and her Oscar nomination and Saturn award were more than earned.

The rest of the cast are all equally fantastic at what they do. I do kind of wish the male cast had had a little bit more depth, but at the same time I totally appreciate why they were kept kind of one note for the purpose of proving a point. They all do great, I had no complaints.

And the soundtrack…It works for this film, I dont feel like it worked for me. I can totally appreciate that a quasi synthy droning roaring score is PERFECT for this kind of movie and really helps set the mood. Im just…SO tired of synth drone soundtracks in sci-fi and horror at this point. I really just want something ANYTHING with actual ‘substance’ behind it…

All in all, while flawed at times, I really enjoyed ‘The Substance’ I can absolutely see why it won the acclaim that it did, and would highly recommend it if you havent already checked it out. Its imperfect, and thats okay.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-substance/

by tytdreviews