ENDZEIT (Ever After) - Review By Greg Klymkiw - TIFF 2018 - Original Zombie Apocalypse Film

All female filmmakers yield original zombie apocalypse.

Endzeit - Ever After (2018)
Dir. Carolina Hellsgård
Scr. Olivia Vieweg
Starring: Gro Swantje Kohlhof, Maja Lehrer, Trine Dyrholm

Review By Greg Klymkiw

A plague has descended upon the Earth and as per usual, the zombies outnumber the living. Only two plague-free cities exist, in Germany, of course. They stand alone as fortresses against the hordes of slavering, flesh-eating creatures. Life within in them is, however, anything but normal. The citizens must slave constantly to keep the zombies out and every so often, if someone working along the fences isn't careful, the claws and jaws of a monster reach through to tear out a chunk or two of living flesh. Inevitably, the victim must be dispensed with - a bullet or blow to the head or, on occasion, a simple decapitation is the only solution.

And life, such as it is, goes on.

Sound familiar so far? Sure, why not? We've seen movie upon movie with similar situations and themes, but happily, Endzeit (Ever After) is unlike any of them. In fact, this is one of the most original apocalyptic zombie movies ever made.

Our story begins in the city of Weimar where young Vivi (Gro Swantje Kohlhof) spends her days in a huge old house, reflecting upon the tragedies which befell her family. Eventually, she finds herself outside on the perimeters of the city, assisting other plague survivors to reinforce the walls. Here she meets the tough-minded Eva (Maja Lehrer) and the two of them eventually escape Weimar together aboard an unmanned supply train headed for the city of Jena which, word has it, might provide more hope and humanity. Opposites not only attract, but compliment each other perfectly. When the train breaks down, the two women must wend their way across the harsh dangerous landscape on foot.

Yes, there are the usual challenges - bloodthirsty zombies at every turn - but eventually, they face something altogether new and mysterious. This is where Endzeit creeps into territory of the most original kind. Not only is emphasis placed on their burgeoning friendship and growing love, but it's what they discover that plunges the film into miraculously fresh territory. Nature, you see, has its own plans for the world and it is this biological shift that's truly surprising.

Surprise is the key word here - not in any typical genre film fashion. In spite of the traditional apocalyptic coat hanger with which the film adorns itself with all manner of deep philosophical rumination, we find ourselves always compelled to stay with these women on their journey in what proves to be a very brave, bold new world.

Olivia Vieweg's rich screenplay, based upon her graphic novel, takes us on roads seldom travelled in horror films and Carolina Hellsgård's direction manages to keep the forward thrust of the narrative taut whilst allowing for plenty of deep, slow-burn atmosphere. (And make no mistake, the slow-burn eventually yields an absolutely terrifying and thrilling series of climactic moments that elicit plenty of nail biting.)

Endzeit is creepy and scary, but it's also deeply and profoundly moving. One hesitates to reveal to much more. My own viewing was blessed by knowing very little about the film and the ride it took me on was equally dazzling and thought-provoking.

As the end credits unspooled, I discovered that every major key creative element of this zombie film was created by women. I'd still like to think that this is a work created by film artists of the highest order, no matter what their gender. However, another part of me thinks that women can and do see the world differently and in the case of a post-apocalyptic zombie movie, they have yielded a film that focuses upon that which truly haunts humanity in times of great tragedy - how our own actions to maintain survival at any cost creates that which haunts us the most - the ghosts and memories of those left to die. Finally, Endzeit is a horror film that is happy to scare us, but does so by being less interested in viscera and far more concerned with regeneration and love.

This is a good thing, a very good thing and I, for one, want to see more of this in the movies.

FILM CORNER RATING: **** 4-Stars

Endzeit - Ever After has its World Premiere in the TIFF 2018 Discovery Series.

DEATH BY POPCORN: THE TRAGEDY OF THE WINNIPEG JETS - Review By Greg Klymkiw: Hot Docs 2018 Hot Pick - REDUX series

Little did Burton Cummings know that the WHA Jets
would be gone with the wind, forever.

Death By Popcorn: The Tragedy of the Winnipeg Jets (2006)
Dir. Matthew Rankin, Mike Maryniuk, Walter Forsberg

Review (sort of) By Greg Klymkiw

In honour of the Hot Docs 2018 25th Anniversary, ace programmer/critic Kiva Reardon put together a selection of Canadian documentaries in a series entitled "Redux". When she asked me to recommend Canadian documentaries from the city of Winnipeg, I put together a long and detailed list of films I loved from my beloved Winter City where I'm currently residing and helming the legendary Winnipeg Film Group as its Executive Director.

From that list, which I might publish sometime since it contains fairly extensive assessments of said films, Kiva chose Matthew Rankin, Mike Maryniuk and Walter Forsberg's classic piece of prairie post-modernism, Death By Popcorn: The Tragedy of the Winnipeg Jets. The film, of course, targets that horrible time when Winnipeg lost its beloved team. However, the team is back and actually in the midst of playoff fever.

For me, the real tragedy of the Winnipeg Jets was not losing the team, but rather, that the Winnipeg Jets joined the NHL and that furthermore, the beloved WHA disbanded. (The other tragedy was the decimation of the historic Winnipeg Arena in favour of a cold, corporate, ugly new arena in downtown Winnipeg which was built on the spot which once housed the beloved, historic Eaton's department store at Portage and Donald. But, I digress).

In any event, I'll just reprint Kiva's capsule note in the Hot Docs 2018 program book which quotes me extensively. I do this because I am, like most Winnipeggers, in need of a nap.

Here it is:

SUGGESTED for Redux by Greg Klymkiw, executive director of the Winnipeg Film Group, Death by Popcorn is an unsung Canadian tragicomedy. "A collaboration," writes Klymkiw, "twixt the inimitable Matthew Rankin (heir apparent to John Paizs and Guy Maddin), Mike Maryniuk (who just had a world premiere at Rotterdam) and Walter Forsberg (a film archivist with uber-artistic flair)," the found-footage documentary explores the star-crossed romance between Winnipeggers and their ill-fated Jets. Containing footage from the local news and Jets games, and including familiar faces like Wayne Gretzky and Gary Bettman, Death by Popcorn is a postmodern portrait of corporate greed and Winnipeg itself. Though a sell-out at the Winnipeg Cinematheque upon its release, Death by Popcorn seemed destined to suffer the same fate as the NHL team it followed, as copyright issues plagued subsequent screenings. Now, come relish the highs and lows of the film billed as "sadness on ice."

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** Four-Stars

Death By Popcorn: The Tragedy of the Winnipeg Jets, plays at Hot Docs 2018 in the Redux series.

THE OSLO DIARIES - Review By Greg Klymkiw - 2018 Hot Docs Hot Pick: ***** Five-Stars

Arab-Israeli peace talks at centre of dazzling doc.

The Oslo Diaries (2018)
Dir. Mor Loushy, Daniel Sivan

Review By Greg Klymkiw

There are documentaries that get by on compelling subject matter alone. There are others that apply the standards, such as they are these days, of journalism and render work that makes for compelling television. Then there are documentaries that are pure, dazzling cinema with all the scope, poetry and virtuosity that place them upon the pedestal of art. When such films are also infused with journalistic principles that don't get in the way of great filmmaking and have vital, coercive and downright imperative subject matter, then what you get is something like Mor Loushy and Daniel Sivan's The Oslo Diaries.

Loushy and Sivan have delivered the goods before with 2015's Censored Voices, one of the most profound anti-war films made in our new millennium, a staggeringly original and deeply poetic exploration of the 1967 Arab–Israeli Six Day War. Like that great film, The Oslo Diaries does not rest on the run-of-the-mill laurels so many documentaries are content to perch themselves upon.

Focusing on the secret 1992 peace talks in Oslo between participants on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides of the equation, this is a film that is at once hopeful, but also feels as dangerous and tense as a great espionage thriller - keep in mind that these talks were so secret that the participants were actually breaking the law by holding them. Imagine peace talks that could have resulted in substantial prison time.

As well, the visual juxtaposition between sunny Israel and frigid, wintry Norway, creates the kind of cinematic shorthand that only great filmmakers truly understand in terms of rendering work of lasting value. There's nothing ephemeral about the filmmaking, nor the subject matter. Then again, the notion of peace being ephemeral is not only scary, but is one of the things that forcefully drives the movie.

Another great juxtaposition is the judicious use of archival footage from the period (including the Camp David accord with Bill Clinton, Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat) with contemporary interviews (including the last interview ever given by Shimon Peres before his 2016 death).

Finally, the pièce de résistance are readings from the actual diaries kept by the secret peace talk participants and dramatized recreations of the talks themselves (chilly Kyiv, Ukraine standing in very nicely for chilly Oslo) and skilfully blended interviews conducted very recently.

This is a film that breaks rule after rule, but does so with such aplomb and intelligence and grace, that we are left with a picture that not only confounds expectations, but breaks rules for two of the best reasons I can think of: to create great cinema and to further peace. These are fine considerations. One wishes more pictures had such lofty goals and were able to pull them off as astoundingly as The Oslo Diaries.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** Five-Stars

The Oslo Diaries enjoys its Canadian Premiere at Hot Docs 2018.

FIRST REFORMED, THE FLORIDA PROJECT, I LOVE YOU DADDY - TIFF 2017 - More 4-Star **** Pictures Dazzle at TIFF - Capsule Review Roundup By Greg Klymkiw

The terrific pictures at TIFF 2017, just kept on on coming.

3 Four-Star Capsule Reviews of
First Reformed, The Florida Project, I Love You Daddy

By Greg Klymkiw

FIRST REFORMED ****
Dir. Paul Schrader
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Amanda Seyfried
One of the elder statesmen of American Cinema has possibly pulled off his greatest work with a dense psychological thriller. Paul Schrader knocks it out of the park with this compulsive tale of an alcoholic priest (Ethan Hawke - never better) haunted by his son's death, obsessed with a young widow (Amanda Seyfried) and facing a deep crisis of faith. Imagine Ingmar Bergman's Winter Light crossed with Robert Bresson's Diary of a Country Priest and Schrader's own classic screenplay for Taxi Driver. Chillingly austere.

FLORIDA PROJECT, THE ****
dir. Sean Baker
In a sleazy motel in Florida, just outside Walt Disney World, we follow the lives of a precocious, vibrant little girl, her drug addicted hustler single Mom and a kindly caretaker (beautifully played by Willem Dafoe no less). This oddball backdrop and rich characters comprise Sean (Tangerine) Baker's magical ode to childhood amidst squalor. A gloriously original film that both soars and breaks your heart.

I LOVE YOU, DADDY ****
Dir. Louis C.K.
Standup comic Louis C.K. writes, directs and stars in this gorgeously photographed (in monochrome no less) love letter to Woody Allen's Manhattan that finally lives and breathes on its own steam. This portrait of a father's relationship with his teenage daughter (and her affair with a man 50+ years her senior) is so piquant and moving that the tears it elicits from viewers are alternately due to laughter and the movie's deep emotional core.

First Reformed, The Florida Project, I Love You Daddy all played at TIFF 2017

THE BREADWINNER, DARKEST HOUR, THE DISASTER ARTIST - TIFF 2017 - Roundup of 4-Star **** Capsule Reviews By Greg Klymkiw

The terrific pictures at TIFF 2017, keep on coming.

3 Four-Star Capsule Reviews of
The Breadwinner, Darkest Hour & The Disaster Artist

By Greg Klymkiw

BREADWINNER, THE (2017) ****
Dir. Nora Twomey
From Aircraft Pictures and director Nora Twomey comes The Breadwinner, a harrowing, thrilling and inspiring film (blessed with a great screenplay adaptation by Anita Doron) of the young adult novel by Deborah Ellis in which a young girl in Afghanistan must pose as a boy in order to help her family when their patriarchal head is imprisoned. The suspense during the final third is almost unbearable. This is one of the best animated feature films I've seen in years.

DARKEST HOUR (2017) ****
Dir. Joe Wright
Starring: Gary Oldman,Ben Mendelsohn, Kristin Scott Thomas
In Darkest Hour, director Joe Wright expertly weaves the tale of Prime Minister Winston Churchill during the early days of WWII - from his appointment as PM and through to his historical "we shall fight on the beaches" speech to parliament. Gary Oldman plays the irascible orator with verve and passion. In many ways, Oldman is the movie. The film is little more than war propaganda, but it's first-rate war propaganda and the fictional sequence involving old Winnie riding the London Underground is insanely, gloriously stirring and moving. His performance overall, moved me to tears.

DISASTER ARTIST, THE (2017) ****
Dir. James Franco
Starring: James Franco, Greg Franco, Seth Rogen
Based on the memoir by actor Greg Sestero, director-leading-man James Franco and co-star (his real-life brother Dave Franco) take us into similar territory Tim Burton occupied with his glorious biopic Ed Wood. Here we get the strangely moving, heartfelt and often hilarious tale of Tommy Wiseau, the "auteur" who made The Room (often considered the best bad movie ever made). I still haven't seen Wiseau's film, but it hasn't been an impediment to my thorough enjoyment of Franco's film.

The Breadwinner, Darkest Hour and The Disaster Artist are TIFF 2017 presentations.

BICKFORD PARK - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Skateboard pas de deux at TIFF 2017

The babe suffers, but NOT in silence. Ain't it always the way?

Bickford Park (2017)
Dir. Dane Clark, Linsey Stewart
Starring: Lianne Balaban

Review By Greg Klymkiw

So you've had to suffer through listening to your long-haired loser husband tinkling the ivories in the basement as he caterwauls his way through a contemptibly worthless tune he's composed and now, after a long day at work, you're sitting in your car reading a book, conveniently avoiding home.

The phone rings.

It's hubby. He wants you to pick something up on your way back. Uh, what's he been doing all day? He delivers the expected answer.

"I meant to go out, but I got pretty deep into it today."

Trying to imagine what bottomless chasm of talent-bereft hack-dom he'd plunged into fills you, no doubt, with utter dread.

Such is the current lot in life for Jill (Lianne Balaban), a bright gorgeous thirty-something who spends her evenings jogging the streets as far away from hearth, home and hubby as possible. One evening during a restorative sojourn in sneakers and shorts, she spies a lone skateboard. It beckons. She gets on board. Her attempt is shaky, and perhaps even more so when the owner of the board, a hunky dude at least ten years her junior, claims it as his own and asks for its return.

This delightful new form of physical activity (and escape from the emptiness of domesticity) sends her straight to a sporting goods store. It doesn't take long before she return to the park to try out her new skateboard. Happily, the hunky dude shows up.

The lessons begin - a pas de deux on wheels. What sparks will fly? Is romance in the air? Watching Bickford Park, one certainly hopes so. Smartly, directors Dane Clark and Linsey Stewart don't take any expected turns. There's a reason why they chosen to film in monochrome - shades of grey are always more interesting.

Their film is sweet and enchanting but ultimately infused with melancholy. We want to spend a lot more time with its characters, we want to see it play out well beyond its running time, we get expected delights to be sure, but it's the unexpected hands we're dealt that offer the kind of layers of complexity that send us out of the theatre with so much more than the by-rote fodder most contemporary romantic comedies pass off as clever.

Bickford Park delivers something far richer.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** 4-Stars

Bickford Park plays at TIFF 2017

THREADS, CHARLES - Reviews By Greg Klymkiw - NFB at TIFF 2017 soars with joy and sadness

Life leads us from the frogs.

Charles (2017)
Dir. Dominic Etienne Simard

Review By Greg Klymkiw

In a mostly monochrome world, doughy lad Charles tends to his gargantuan lolly-gagging mother in a squalid flat. There are simple joys, of course, his beloved frogs, school and dips in the nearby lake. Dollops of colour, albeit pale and/or muted keep threatening to bring joy and solace, but they are fleeting.

Colour eventually explodes in the form of rising blue waters threatening to drown him. Will he be rescued? And whom or what will rescue him? Will it indeed be life itself? And oh, when it rains, what will rain down? Frogs? Kitty cats? Doggies? Big pudgy baby bears?

And will he find happiness?

Or is it, ultimately, imagination that will provide the ultimate freedom?

In Dominic Etienne Simard's Charles (a National Film Board of Canada co-production with France), it is the waters of time and the long, slow march to adulthood and freedom that await. The journey will, like so much of our lives, prove to be bittersweet. The film's gorgeous expressive visuals fill in all the blanks and finally, we're left with a work that soars with a great, though sometimes terrible beauty.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** 4-Stars

Charles plays at TIFF 2017.

The ties that bind hang by a thread.

Threads (2017)
Dir. Torill Kove

Review By Greg Klymkiw

To hang by a thread usually suggests imminent danger, something unstable and/or doomed to failure. In Oscar-Winner Torill Kove's lovely and simple animated short (a National Film Board of Canada co-production with Norway), it's the ties that bind which hang by a thread; a slender thread indeed.

This delicate and moving work details the life of a young woman who grabs a thread dangling from the heavens and allows it to hoist her upwards on a journey we come to recognize as life.

When she finds another thread, it's attached to an infant. She and the little girl are inseparable. Though the child grows incrementally into adulthood, they're bound together by that mysterious thread. Even when the thread leads the child to peers on a playground and, for a time, completely out of the mother's purview, the thread remains.

But the day comes, one we all dread I think, when when her daughter must sever the tie that binds to jump up to the heavens, to clutch her own thread.

As a single Dad to a teenage daughter the film inspired so many personal memories of past and present. It provided both solace and melancholy as I, like the mother in the film, face the imminent severing of my own thread to my own child. Yes, we dread the severance, but we also accept it. Life must go on and for those we love the dearest, our children, it must move forward.

There might not be anything new revealed in the sentiments and story revealed in the film, but its visual metaphor is one I welcomed, understood and responded to on a deep emotional level.

I suspect I'll not be alone in this.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** 4-Stars

Threads plays at TIFF 2017.

SID AND NANCY - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Classic Punk Biopic on Criterion Collection

Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb as punk lovers
Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen in Cox classic.

Sid and Nancy (1986)
Dir. Alex Cox
Scr. Cox and Abbe Wool
Starring: Gary Oldman, Chloe Webb, Drew Schofield, David Hayman

Review By Greg Klymkiw

It seems inevitable that the wildly, strangely romantic tragic biopic Sid and Nancy would be Alex Cox's sophomore feature after his astonishing 1984 debut with the punk masterpiece Repo Man. Veering from an almost neo-realist 70s-style nihilism to a whacked-out druggie comedy to a borderline surreal presentation of a world gone completely nuts, Repo Man now feels like the ultimate 80s American film. Cox's picture, with its aimless punk played by Emilio Estevez finding his niche as a repo man with the sage Harry Dean Stanton, virtually spat in the face of the feel-goody-two-shoes of the execrable John Hughes teen dramedies and the sprawling, noisy, state-of-the-art macho action and adventure films that populated that often-wretched decade of cinema.

The hallucinogenic properties Cox brought to bear upon his first feature continued unabated with this grim, grimy love story twixt the legendary Sid Vicious (Gary Oldman), bassist of The Sex Pistols and his girlfriend Nancy Spungen (Chloe Webb). Though the screenplay by Cox and co-writer Abbe Wool hits many tried and true biopic beats, the film ultimately excels during its many flights of fancy and the clearly oddball properties of a loving, domestic partnership against the backdrop of addiction, substance abuse and the sheer anarchy of the late 70s period of punk rock.

The film begins with the early rise to success of the band managed by Malcolm McLaren (David Hayman) and doesn't waste time getting Sid together with Nancy. They're young, they're in love and they're hooked on heroin. They're also inseparable - so much so that their couple-status begins to upset the applecart of the band. Once The Sex Pistols are on tour in America, things go from bad to worse. The group breaks up. Sid and Nancy continue as a couple whilst Sid attempts to launch a solo career.

And then, tragedy strikes in the squalidly legendary Chelsea Hotel in New York City. Love hurts and it most definitely doesn't last forever and death - violent death at that, has a bad habit of ending the joy and most of all, the pain.

As with Repo Man, Cox has a definitely unique eye on America and in Sid and Nancy, he delivers a skewed world through the eyes of these loving drug addicts (thanks to the astonishing work of cinematographer Roger Deakins and especially, Gary Oldman's star-making performance).

One of the most poignantly addled moments in the film comes when Nancy declares: "I hate my fuckin' life." Loving Sid responds: "This is just a rough patch. Things'll be much better when we get to America, I promise." Nancy looks blankly at him and matter-of-factly responds: "We're in America. We've been here a week."

Oh yeah.

Love hurts, alright. Especially when you don't know where you are. Or who you are.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** 4-Stars

Sid and Nancy is available as DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION on the Criterion Collection in a new 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed stereo soundtrack on the Blu-ray, an alternate 5.1 surround soundtrack, presented in DTS-HD Master Audio on the Blu-ray, Two audio commentaries: one from 1994 featuring cowriter Abbe Wool, actors Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb, cultural historian Greil Marcus, filmmakers Julien Temple and Lech Kowalski, and musician Eliot Kidd; the other from 2001 featuring cowriter-director Alex Cox and actor Andrew Schofield England’s Glory, a 1987 documentary on the making of Sid & Nancy, Infamous 1976 Bill Grundy interview with the Sex Pistols on British television, Rare telephone interview from 1978 with Sid Vicious, Interviews with Vicious and Nancy Spungen from the 1980 documentary D.O.A.: A Right of Passage, Archival interviews and footage, plus an essay by author Jon Savage and a 1986 piece compiled by Cox about Vicious, Spungen, and the making of the film.

COLD HELL (aka Die Hölle) - Fantasia 2017 Review of Stefan Ruzowitzky Thriller by Greg Klymkiw at "Electric Sheep - a deviant view of cinema"

A WITNESS. AN EXTREME MUSLIM SERIAL KILLER.

Read Greg Klymkiw's **** 4-Star Fantasia 2017 review of Stefan Ruzowitzky's terrifying thriller Cold Hell (aka Die Hölle) at "Electric Sheep - a deviant view of cinema" HERE.

VALERIAN AND THE CITY OF A THOUSAND PLANETS - Greg Klymkiw reviews Besson madness at Fantasia 2017 for "Electric Sheep - a deviant view of cinema"

Dopey, dumb and delightfully loopy in all the right ways, Luc Besson’s VALERIAN AND THE CITY OF PLANETS (a special screening at Fantasia 2017) is eye-candy of the highest order.

Read the Greg Klymkiw review at "Electric Sheep - a deviant view of cinema" HERE.

KILLING GROUND - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Psycho Aussie Inbreds at Fantasia 2017

As you can see, it's best to avoid Australia.

Killing Ground (2017)
Dir. Damien Power
Starring: Harriet Dyer, Ian Meadows, Aaron Pedersen, Aaron Glenane,
Maya Stange, Julian Garner, Tiarnie Coupland, Liam Parkes, Riley Parkes

Review By Greg Klymkiw

It's not an especially good idea to go camping in Australia. The Down Under hinterlands are full of slavering White Trash inbreds hell-bent upon raping wives, girlfriends and daughters in front of their menfolk and eventually, slaughtering the whole lot of them. It can't be any other way - at least not in the movies.

Killing Ground follows a young doctor (Ian Meadows) and his girlfriend (Harriet Dyer) on a long drive into the Oz wilderness for a happy, carefree vacation. They're madly in love, of course, and the pristine beauty of the natural world around them inspires a marriage proposal under the big, clear skies.

Things couldn't be better. Unfortunately, the lovebirds haven't seen enough cautionary Australian exploitation films in the grand tradition of Road Games, Wolf Creek, Primal, et al. Lurking just round the corner are a pair of avid wild pig hunters (Aaron Pedersen, Aaron Glenane) who have a little more on their relatively feeble minds than bagging some snuffling porcine delights. These fellas need to do a little porcine snuffling themselves.

When our couple happen upon a lovely spot, they notice a tent nearby. Nobody appears to be inhabiting it, even though there appear to have been signs of recent life. Oh well, those folks must be enjoying a nature trail. Well, they tried to enjoy a nature trail. Writer-Director Damien Power's screenplay affords us a glimpse into what happened to a hapless hubby and wife (Maya Stange, Julian Garner), their pretty teenage daughter (Tiarnie Coupland) and infant son (played by identical twins Liam and Riley Parkes).

And what happened ain't pretty.

The film affords us a glimpse into the family's encounter with the aforementioned psychos and whilst we enjoy the couple's idyll, we know it won't last long.

Killing Ground is a creepy, terrifying tale of survival that takes us into Deliverance territory. Making his feature film debut, Power parcels out the suspense with the skill and aplomb of a master and though his screenplay offers little beyond its derivative mechanics, he peppers it with more than enough twists and turns of the fresh variety whilst adding a structure that skilfully plays with timelines to keep us riveted.

And once again, we get another good reason to avoid vacationing in Australia.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ****

Killing Ground enjoys its Canadian Premiere at Fantasia 2017

MOST BEAUTIFUL ISLAND - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Chilling Indie Thriller at Fantasia 2017

What we don't see is what's really terrifying.

Most Beautiful Island (2017)
Dir. Ana Asensio
Starring: Ana Asenio, Natasha Romanova, Larry Fessenden

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Illegal alien.

In America this is the disparaging term they like affixing to someone looking for a better life. Yes, they are foreigners. Yes, they have entered the country illegally. In the vast majority of cases, these are people seeking the American Dream - honest, hardworking folk escaping poverty and/or political persecution/upheaval. They look to America as their saviour. America doesn't want them.

The real question though, is this: should these people want America?

Luciana (Ana Asensio) is one such illegal alien. She lives on that Most Beautiful Island, Manhattan. She's there to escape a turbulent, tragic, mysterious past. Life might have been hard before, but it's harder now. She goes from one menial, low-paying job (all under the table) to the next. But then, salvation comes. Her fellow illegal, a Russian "model" (Natasha Romanova), tells her about a job that will pay $2000 for one night and comes with the bonus of more if "she does good".

Luciana will be a party hostess. Apparently, there are no sexual favours involved. She's given specific instructions. Attire is a black cocktail dress. She must bring nothing with her, save for a mysterious black purse with a lock on it (that she's provided in the basement of a Chinatown restaurant). Oh, and she absolutely must have no identification on her.

A good offer? Well, in America, all such offers are too good to be true.

What follows is one of the most terrifying extended sequences committed to film in some time. (And yes, on film - Asenio's picture is gorgeously shot on Super 16mm.) Luciana finds herself in a dank basement warehouse presided over by a mean-looking doorman (Larry Fessenden). The room is populated by several gorgeous young women, all attired in black cocktail dresses, standing in a circle under murky, soft lights. A door opens. A group of affluent, well-dressed reprobates of both sexes enter. They inspect the black-frocked illegal aliens and whisper amongst each other. Once they leave, the women continue standing. Eventually, one of them is summoned. She's led into the other room.

Something is going to happen and it takes a good long time.

Most Beautiful Island is a terrific debut feature. Writer-director-star Asensio captures the lonely, desperate lives of illegal aliens with an indelible sense of observation that borders on Neo-realism. The final half of the picture, once Luciana enters the secret, horrifying dangerous world where illegal aliens are used as pawns for the rich in a deadly game, is unbearably suspenseful. Asensio paces these sequences with a creepy-crawly slow burn and it's impossible to sit still. Squirming is the order of the day for anyone watching this section of the film.

One element that's with me still is being in that room with those women while, one by one, they are summoned. What goes on behind the closed doors is not known to us, nor to the women. All we know is that it's not going to be good, whatever it is. That said, I have to admit I experienced minor disappointment once we were allowed to enter the room of reckoning. What occurs certainly works on a purely visceral level - this cannot be denied. However, even though what's revealed is rooted in something that is based in reality, it felt like a comedown to actually see what it is.

You see, what's scary is what we don't see. Lord knows there is a grand tradition of this that goes back to the groundbreaking work of Val Lewton and a little part of me wishes it stayed that way. Alas, audiences these days are inquiring minds that need to know. What they get is genuinely horrific, But damn, I keep imagining a movie where the horror of what we didn't see was maintained.

But that's okay. Most Beautiful Island is plenty scary.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ****

Most Beautiful Island enjoys its Canadian Premiere at Fantasia 2017.

LOWLIFE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - A Luchador Thug in Tarantinoville at Fantasia 2017

El Monstruo worships a grand Luchador at a Holy Shrine!

Lowlife (2017)
Dir. Ryan Prows
Scr. Prows, Tim Cairo, Jake Gibson, Shaye Ogbonna, Maxwell Michael Towson
Starring: Ricardo Adam Zarate, Nicki Micheaux, Santana Dempsey,
Mark Bunrham, Jon Oswald, Shaye Ogbonna

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Luchadores, those glorious masked wrestlers of Mexico (popularized in the 20th century by the likes of El Santo and The Blue Demon) are emblematic of all that is good and evil - heroes and villains to the common man, performing great feats of gymnastic warfare in the ring and dazzlingly costumed in ancient Aztec tradition. Most notable is that the greatest artists amongst the lucha libre will, more often than not, never remove their masks. Once a luchador dons his public visage, he has a sacred duty to keep it affixed to his face forever.

In Lowlife, the dazzling feature debut of director Ryan Prowse, El Monstruo (Ricardo Adam Zarate) has a considerable legacy to uphold. His father was not only Mexico's greatest wrestler, but revered as a legendary freedom fighter. Too bad then that El Monstruo has been relegated to working as a waiter and low-level thug at a Taco Restaurant in Los Angeles, a business front for Teddy 'Bear' Haynes (Mark Bunrham), a scumbag gringo hoodlum who kidnaps illegal aliens for the purposes of illegal organ harvesting, baby-selling and prostitution.

El Monstruo has another problem. His pregnant wife Kaylee (Santana Dempsey) is a heroin addict and Teddy has designs on selling her baby once she gives birth. Kaylee's mother Crystal (Nicki Micheaux), who now runs a sleazy motel, was also once similarly afflicted and sold her child to feed her habit. Crystal pines for the daughter she never knew and watches Kaylee from afar. When Teddy hires two thugs (Jon Oswald, Shaye Ogbonna) to kidnap the luchador's drug-addled wife, they take her to Crystal's motel, a known drop-off and pick-up point for his nefarious activities.

Hell, vengeance and sacrifice are just round the corner. A climactic blood bath awaits.

Though Prows has borrowed a story-telling structure quite liberally from Quentin Tarantino and occasionally infuses the tale with dialogue of a similar nutty hardboiled kind, the film never feels derivative. The picture is brimming with touches that tantalize and delight; a grand monologue on the tradition of the Luchas libres that reveals a sweet, innocent recipient of the words and eventually yields a horrific act of violence, is a crime picture set-piece of the highest order. Prows is clearly in Tarantino's debt, but he wisely places most of the emphasis upon mad, operatic melodrama. The movie is as moving as it is grittily shocking and deeply, darkly funny.

Humanity ultimately rules the day in this sleazy world and though a luchador can only remove his mask in death, the legacy will continue if he makes his sacrifice in the name of all that is good and true. Such is the driving force of Lowlife and we are blessed with a film that allows us to soar.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ****

LOWLIFE enjoys its World Premiere at Fantasia 2017.

BITCH - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Fantasia 2017 unleashes dark, savage, feminist satire

BITCH: provocative title, provocative movie.

Bitch (2017)
Dir. Marianna Palka
Starring: Jason Ritter, Marianna Palka, Jaime King

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Soon after a failed suicide attempt, housewife Jill (Marianna Palka) can't help but notice a mysterious dog hanging around the beautiful suburban home she lives in with her four children and heartless, scheming, cheating husband Bill (Jason Ritter). She can't keep her eyes off the mangy shepherd and the friendly, panting dog does likewise. They have a bond. Too bad nobody else can see the doggy. Jill, you see, is having a complete nervous breakdown. She's a supermom to her kids and runs the home with clockwork efficiency, but she's so very much alone.

Marianna Palka's provocatively titled Bitch is a savage feminist satire that's as creepy as it is funny and it takes the kind of unexpected narrative turns that are not only aesthetically tantalizing, but yield the kind of original, uncompromising work that restores one's faith in cinema. Stranger even still, is that it slowly develops into a deeply moving tale of redemption.

But who, precisely, is the recipient of this redemption? As it turns out, in the film's exploration of patriarchal domination and its damaging effects upon a woman who simply wants to be loved, appreciated and maintain her sanity as both a woman and a human being, the central character to whom the film bestows its fullest arc is none other than her asshole husband Bill. At first, we are resolutely in Jill's sphere, but the perspective slowly changes - it's Bill whom we follow. If anything, the film is about a man opening his eyes when he has to stare in the mirror and recognize what he's become, and perhaps, always was.

At first, when Jill seems to absorb the personality and spirit of the mysterious dog, Bill is faced with the prospect of actually having to be a father. The family unit suffers a complete breakdown when the beleaguered wife and mom transforms into a growling, snarling "bitch" (female dog) - crawling about on all fours, urinating and defecating all over the house and eventually being banished to the basement as hubby Bill tries to juggle the needs of his children and the demands of his job. He seeks the help and support of Jill's sister Beth (Jaime King) and since he's completely useless as a father (he doesn't even know what schools his kids attend), he puts his sister-in-law in the position of being a surrogate homemaker.

Bitch not only becomes Bill's story, but is, in fact, his story. What a brave and original work this is. In essence, his redemption as a human being is emblematic of his own wife's redemption, his family's survival and a journey to recognize the effects of patriarchy.

Palka directs the movie as if her life depended upon it. Though it has a similar cold veneer one sees in the work of someone like Michael Haneke, Palka's control over her clever screenplay wends its way into a kind of humanity that Haneke can only dream about. (If anything, her work here feels closer to that of Ulrich Seidl.) Palka's own performance is astonishing - veering from "a woman on the edge of a nervous breakdown" (giving Gena Rowlands a run for her money in the famous Cassavetes title of the same name) to a human being infused with all the properties, physical and behavioural, of a canine. This is acting of the highest, richest level. Jason Ritter's work is equally brilliant. That he sketches a completely worthless human being that we eventually care about is nothing short of stellar.

Bitch knocks us on our asses. We never know where it's going to go, but when we get there with it, we know we're in the territory of a genuinely great filmmaker, but most of all, we look upon a motion picture that turns itself upon us like a mirror. We're forced to confront both ourselves and the world around us.

This is what movies are meant to do.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ****

Bitch enjoys its Canadian Premiere at Fantasia 2017.

BUSHWICK - Review By Greg Klymkiw - The Apocalypse comes to Brooklyn at Fantasia 2017

House of Worship, World of Shit, Apocalypse!!!

Bushwick (2017)
Dir. Jonathan Milott, Cary Murnion
Scr. Nick Damici, Graham Reznick
Starring: Dave Bautista, Brittany Snow, Angelic Zambrana

Review By Greg Klymkiw

You've just got off the subway with your boyfriend and are looking forward to introducing him to your Granny in Brooklyn. The platform is strangely empty until, naturally (it is the Bushwick district after all), a young gentleman in flames from head to toe barrels by, screaming in agony. As you and your beau ascend the stairs, you do so with trepidation - not only because a fiery human shishkebab just passed by, but now you can hear screams and gunshots. Your boyfriend bravely suggests you wait inside so he can go out to take a peek. Wrong move. He returns, near death, his flesh seared like charred corned beef. Once the love of your life expires, it's onwards and upwards.

What pretty young Lucy (Brittany Snow) discovers is Hell on Earth. People are rioting in the streets, looting is rampant and heavily armed military personnel in snappy, though scary-ass fascistic black uniforms (replete with helmets and dark, reflective faceplates) are firing into the bodies of innocent bystanders at will. She barely escapes certain death and hides out in a basement suite in the bowels of a nearby apartment building. The idyll doesn't last long. A few slavering gang banger thugs assail her.

Luckily, she's in the apartment of caretaker/janitor Stupe (Dave Bautista, WWE/MMA champ and the hilarious Drax in Guardians of the Galaxy), a tough-as-nails military veteran who dispatches the scumbags handily and saves her ass. This mismatched (clearly) pair become partners in survival as they wend their way through a veritable apocalypse.

America is under attack - by itself, it seems. A deadly army of redneck Southern secessionists has attacked the northern states and have concentrated their efforts in various New York boroughs, assuming, since they're ignorant racists (as most Deep Southerners must surely be) that they'll be able to have an easier time conquering "ethnics". Uh, not too bright, fellas. "Ethnics" fight back.

Bushwick is blessed with a first-rate screenplay that offers a simple, solid narrative coat hanger to deliver edge-of-the-seat suspense and plenty of action, but most off all, is infused with plenty of social/political layering and gorgeously-etched character shadings. This should come as no surprise to anyone who knows the name of the film's lead co-writer, the estimable Nick Damici, a terrific character actor who's also penned several brilliant scripts for director Jim Mickle (Mulberry Street, Stake Land, We Are What We Are, Cold in July). And yes, the script is always the thing, but it helps that co-directors Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion handle the proceedings with skill, efficiency and verve. Often utilizing several long, gorgeously shot takes, their camera whirs and glides (and not in annoying shaky-cam) with the kind of expert action movie precision that puts many of its big budget studio blackbuster cousins to shame.

The big bonus here, is that both script and direction are blessed with a perfect combination of humanity and cynicism. Bushwick is an exceedingly dark picture and happily, it feels like it would have been at home and comfy amidst any number of classic dystopian 70s science-fiction/action thrillers. The picture gave me gooseflesh and by its nasty, shocking, horrifying conclusion, I was truly, deliciously, orgasmically spent.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ****

Bushwick, a Search Engine Films release, opens theatrically August 2017 in Canada and enjoys its Canadian Premiere at Fantasia 2017.

Docs at FANTASIA 2017 - Greg Klymkiw Reviews: 78/52, LET THERE BE LIGHT, TOKYO IDOLS

The 2017 edition of the FANTASIA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL in Montreal is one of the biggest and best celebrations of genre in the world. And they screen documentaries too.

Here are reposts of my reviews of 78/52, LET THERE BE LIGHT and TOKYO IDOLS - all perfect Fantasia material and very much worth seeing if you already haven't.

Walter Murch analyzing the editing of PSYCHO. Wow!

78/52 (2017) ***½
Dir. Alexandre O. Philippe
Starring: Walter Murch, Peter Bogdanovich, Guillermo del Toro, Jamie Lee Curtis, Danny Elfman, Eli Roth, Elijah Wood, Richard Stanley, Scott Spiegel, Leigh Whannell, Bret Easton Ellis, Illeana Douglas, Marli Renfro, Tere Carrubba, Stephen Rebello, David Thomson, Karyn Kusama, Neil Marshall

Review By Greg Klymkiw

"I felt I'd been raped," says Peter Bogdanovich after describing his first helping of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. He's one of many worthy interview subjects to talk about the shower scene in Psycho. His description of the audience reaction to the sequence in the Times Square cinema he saw it in, is alone worth the price of admission to 78/52.

Happily, Phillipe's documentary offers a sumptuous buffet of perspectives.

Some of the best include:

- an astonishing dissection of the editing from Walter Murch (so amazing that one could have simply made an entire film of Murch discussing it with clips);

- a series of insightful analyses from the brilliant Hardware director Richard Stanley whose passion and appreciation seems so deliciously bonkers (and spot-on) that his demeanour seems almost malevolent in its glee;

- Janet Leigh's nude/stunt body double Marli Renfro who not only provides a cornucopia of production tidbits, but does so which such natural zeal and talent one wonders what we lost from her not being a more prolific actress in movies herself;

- filmmakers Eli (Hostel torture-porn-gore-meister) Roth, Neil (The Descent) Marshall and Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy), all proving they've got the chops to be film professors of the highest order if directing ever turns out to be a dead-end for them and;

- ace composer Danny Elfman brilliantly discussing Bernard Herrmann's game-changing, shriek-and-heart-attack-inducing string score.

Of course, no such documentary would be complete without a stellar passel of eggheads and Phillipe doesn't disappoint in this regard by including film critics/historians Stephen Rebello and David Thomson, PLUS an art history expert casting light on the strange Baroque painting Hitchcock chose as the instrument by which Norman Bates would, peeping-Tom-like, spy upon Janet Leigh.

Oh, but there are several questionable inclusions in the picture which only serve to add unnecessary longueurs and head-scratching to the whole affair. I mean, really. Was it absolutely necessary to waste our time with the "insights" from those responsible for the Saw sequels and Hostel IV? And come on, why even acknowledge that Gus Van Sant's idiotic remake of Psycho exists, much less spending any time on it whatsoever?

However, this is kind of like picking out undigested bits of corn and peanuts from a good, healthy turd deposit and 78/52 is, for most of us fanboys, robust and satisfying.

The ultimate fusion reactor is within our reach.

Let There Be Light (2017) ****
Dir. Mila Aung-Thwin, Van Royko
Review By Greg Klymkiw

"Stars have a life cycle much like animals. They get born, they grow, they go through a definite internal development - and finally they die, to give back the material of which they are made so that new stars may live." - Hans Bethe, "Energy Production in Stars"

Fusion is the future of energy. It is created by slamming two hydrogen nuclei together. When these two positives collide, we get - Voila! - mega energy. Simple, yes? Uh, no. Our sun, and in fact all stars, are essentially fusion reactors. To create energy from fusion, we essentially need to create our own version of the sun.

Sounds like science fiction to you, right? Well, mankind has been actively studying the potential of fusion for over 50 years and now, with the complex participation of 37 countries and the best/brightest scientific minds, this reality is so close, yet so far.

Let There Be Light is a fascinating, gripping study of what might be the most expensive scientific experiment ever undertaken (ITER, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor).

Filmmaker Mila Aung-Thwin with co-director/cinematographer Van Royko serve up everything you always wanted to know about fusion, but were too uninformed to even bother asking about. Using a dazzling blend of animation, digital effects, penetrating interviews and stunningly shot coverage of the complex mechanics and construction of an actual star-making machine deep in the bucolic countryside of France, this is a science-based documentary with a difference.

It's absolutely thrilling, because what we're watching are real scientists racing against the clock to make this important dream a reality. It's a Michael Crichton thriller come to life, only the stakes are much higher. What Let There Be Light serves up is the future of the Earth itself. Stakes don't get much higher than that.

"I want to save my innocence." Indeed.

Tokyo Idols (2017) ****
Dir. Kyoko Miyake

Review By Greg Klymkiw

In contemporary Japan, there are over 10,000 young girls who are "idols" and they have millions of "fans" - most of whom are unmarried, middle-aged men of the geek/nerd persuasion. You learn something new everyday. It's especially nice when you learn it from movies as good as Tokyo Idols.

I also have to admit that part of the flesh-crawling fun the movie provided me was due to the fact that my first screening of Kyoko Miyake's compulsively fascinating documentary feature was punctuated by a series of exclamatory utterances from my viewing-mate, a very smart, together and funny 15-year-old girl (my daughter, of course). Her jaw was hitting the floor throughout the movie and I've never seen her eyes so wide. Here are but a few of her verbal responses:

"ffffuuucccckkk!!!"

"eeeeweewwwwwww!!!"

"Dad, this is SO not right."

I couldn't really disagree with her. Most of the movie follows the adventures of 19-year-old Rio who longs to be a famous pop-star. She is part of the humungous coterie of teenage girls in Japan with similar aspirations. They call themselves "idols". The other half of the equation are the fans (referred to as "otaku") and Miyake trains her lenses equally upon Koji, a 43-year-old dweeb who lives virtually every waking hour of his life in lavishing copious worship upon her.

Koji has given up the notion of ever having a relationship with another woman. But make no mistake, he loves Rio. He knows he will never sleep with her and that they will never have a relationship beyond a bought-and-paid-for friendship. He's happy to pay money to shake her hand, have a conversation with her (usually involving expressions of his adoration) and attending all her concerts.

Rio, being long-in-tooth for an "idol" must work extra-hard to maintain her fan base and hopefully get a shot at stardom.

Rio is 19-years-old. As such, she is long-in-tooth.

The film also gives us glimpses into other "idols" and "otaku", but also unveils this very strange world in which teenage girls adorn themselves in schoolgirl outfits, gyrate onstage suggestively and belt out innocuous pop tunes. The men are genuinely lonely and bereft of any other purpose in life. They're also dedicated to doing anything and everything to help their "idols" achieve success. Yes, it's "genuine", but it's also sinister and at times, downright repugnant.

By far the creepiest instance of idol/hero worship involves a girl who is still, for all intents and purposes, a child. Yes, there are genuine child "idols" and plenty of creepy old dudes "devoted" to them.

These guys crave relationships with no commitment and most of all, want "friendships" with little girls. They're like pedophiles who get to do everything pedophiles do without actually committing criminal acts of sexual assault. Of course this is all occurring against the twisted cultural backdrop of anime and manga, often driven by pubescent/adolescent female victims and male demons with big dicks.

Middle-aged men with no lives worship teenage girls.

Ultimately, I like how the film just presents the worlds of idols and otaku without overtly drawing much in the way of "moral" conclusions. We're allowed to draw our own conclusions. Yes, by the end of the film, it feels like there are many unanswered questions, but for the film to go out of its way to answer them would feel disingenuous, and frankly, the kind of thing a dull, by-the-numbers filmmaker would do. It's obvious Miyake is anything but that.

Still, I do wish the movie addressed what might appear to be a very small number of female fans, but most of all, I might have perversely appreciated if the film had managed to get an otaku-dude jerking off to his "idol" paraphernalia, or at the very least admitting that he pulled his pud over these "little girls".

I have absolutely no doubt that the vast majority of these guys engage in plenty of schwance-stroking. As Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) in David Lynch's Blue Velvet says: "It's a strange world, isn't it?"

78/52, LET THERE BE LIGHT and TOKYO IDOLS are all playing at Fantasia 2017 in Montreal. For tickets, click HERE.

EXPERIMENT IN TERROR - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Restored nail-biter @ TIFF BellLightbox

Blake Edwards serves up the epitome of cool.

"Take off your clothes. You want me to take them off for you? Then take them off."
- Ross Martin as Red Lynch in Blake Edwards's Experiment in Terror.

Experiment in Terror (1962)
Dir. Blake Edwards
Scr. The Gordons (Mildred & Gordon)
Starring: Glenn Ford, Lee Remick, Ross Martin, Stefanie Powers

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The villain's name is Lynch. The heroine lives in a neighbourhood called Twin Peaks. The square-jawed, monkey-suited hero is an F.B.I. agent.

Doing the math, geek?

Don't worry. Even if it's not adding up for you, there's plenty more on display than mere cinema-geekery in Experiment in Terror, the consummate 1962 thriller by Blake Edwards that puts most contemporary nail-biters to shame. (Yeah, Get Out, I'm talking to YOU!)

Late one fine San Francisco evening, gorgeous bank teller Kelly Sherwood (Lee Remick, dolled-up in only the finest array of designer wear) is accosted in a suburban garage, from behind naturally, by a dark figure who manhandles her appropriately, guessing her measurements with dazzling precision.

He demands, through a gravely asthmatic voice, that she will steal $100K, following his instructions to the letter. Oh, and she better not go to the police. If she disobeys him, he plans to rape and murder both Kelly and her lithe little teenage sister Toby (Stefanie Powers). Hell, he might still do it anyway. Just for fun.

What's a girl like the impossibly gorgeous Kelly Lynch to do? Well, call the F.B.I. of course and be lucky enough to get the handsome agent John Ripley (Canada's own Glenn Ford) on the line. Big mistake. No sooner does she get off the blower when the predatory attacker suddenly appears, belts Kelly to the floor and crunches his nicely-polished black shoe on her throat. He knows everything. He sees everything. And she better not screw up.

What follows is a terror-infused cat and mouse game. Villain Red Lynch (Ross Martin) is quickly revealed to us (and the cops), but he's one slick dude and though he might be arrogant and totally bat-shit crazy, the man is a mastermind. Every step of the way he manages to outsmart the cops and the picture spins like a whirling dervish through several edge-of-the-seat set pieces and finally climaxes during a ball game in a packed-to-the-rafters Candlestick Park.

Some might find it a bit strange that such a crackling terrific thriller came from Blake Edwards. Yes, he did indeed deliver the hugely successful Breakfast at Tiffany's, the ubiquitous Pink Panther series, 10, one of the best romantic comedies of the 70s and the beloved gender-bending musical-comedy Victor/Victoria, so he's not the first guy one thinks of as someone who's going to deliver a picture as downright throat-catching as Experiment in Terror. But you know, Blake Edwards can and has been cool. He was, after all, the creator of the hard-boiled private-dick series Peter Gunn and here he assembled a top-flight cast, dazzling Phillip Lathrop black and white cinematography on location in San Francisco and a jazzy, jangling score from Henry Mancini.

And then there's Ross Martin as rapist, forger, armed robber and psycho killer Red Lynch - he's easily one of the nastiest, scariest villains in screen history. His thin lips, Cheshire grin, over-the-top wheezing and off-the-Richter-scales slime-bucket attitude all contribute to the creation of a gloriously chilling and, dare I say it, cooler-than-cool madman of the highest order.

He looks great in drag, too. Well, uh, not really "great", per se, but Jesus Christ, I'd hate to meet him in the Ladies Room. Oh, and in Experiment in Terror, we most certainly do meet him there. Damn, it's scary!

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** 4-Stars

A restored digital print of Experiment in Terror plays at TIFF Bell Lightbox.

BEFORE ANYTHING YOU SAY - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Searing Domestic Two-Hander Soars

Kristen Harris and Darcy Fehr: Verbal Domestic Slug-Fest

Before Anything You Say (2016)
Dir. Shelagh Carter
Scr. Deborah Schnitzer
Starring: Kristen Harris, Darcy Fehr, John Bluethner, Toni Reimer, Graham Ashmore

Review By Greg Klymkiw

There's much to be said for the dazzling cinematic potential of watching two great actors verbally slugging it out against the backdrop of claustrophobic domestic strife and Shelagh Carter's Before Anything You Say does not disappoint in the long-honoured snipe-fest sweepstakes. Carter's previous outing Passionflower, a harrowing portrait of mental illness, solidified her position as one of Canada's leading practitioners of searingly glorious psychological melodrama and this new film manages to up the ante by delving into territory that blends the delectable properties of 70s "menopause movies" (typified by the likes of Gilbert Cates's Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams) and the sorrow-laden relationship gymnastics of Alain Resnais (Hiroshima Mon Amour).

Isobel (Kristen Harris) and Jack (Darcy Fehr) find themselves at loggerheads during a vacation in Paris. Jack has an opportunity to move to Bangkok and take a job that will see him working towards fighting against human trafficking. This means that Isobel must either drop her own career and join him or stay behind in their glorious house in their beloved winter city. Add to this mix of emotions is his adult son's disappearance.

Deborah Schnitzer's fine screenplay is well served by Carter's rich mise-en-scene which is supported by the sumptuous cinematography of veteran cameraman Ousama Rawi ("The Tudors", "Borgia" and such classic 70s films as Don Siegel's The Black Windmill and Edward Dmytryk's The Human Factor) and Taavo (The Hanging Garden) Soodor's impeccable production design.

One of the more perverse aspects of the picture is that so much of the film, set in Paris, is relegated to the scintillating verbal jousting between the couple in the cold atmosphere of an upscale hotel room and a touristy cocktail lounge. Here we are in a city of lights and romance, yet the film focuses its lens upon the claustrophic sniping of two people who are on the verge of a total breakdown.

Keri Latimer's haunting score and editor Chad Tremblay's hypnotic cutting both contribute immeasurably to Carter's pain-infused drama. Though this one-hour drama is lean and mean, one feels like it could well have sustained itself for even longer. This is one picture that would have benefitted greatly from overstaying its welcome.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** 4-Stars

Before Anything You Say premieres in competition at the 2017 Madrid International Film Festival