GOODNIGHT MOMMY (Ich seh Ich seh) - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Creepy Austrian Twins

Goodnight Mommy (AKA Ich seh Ich se (2014)
Dir. Veronika Franz, Severin Fiala
Prd. Ulrich Seidl
Starring: Susanne Wuest, Elias Schwarz, Lukas Schwarz

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Here's a Pop Quiz as administered by Austrian filmmaker Ulrich Seidl:

1. If Mommy's distinctive mole is missing after reconstructive surgery, is it best to burn a hole in her face with the sun's rays blasting through a magnifying glass?

2. If you are angry with Mommy, is it best to place an icky beetle on her face and watch it slither into her open mouth as she sleeps?

3. If Mommy's tummy is full of beetles, is it best to slice said tummy open to release said bugs?

4. If you're tired of listening to Mommy, is it best to Krazy Glue her mouth shut?

5. If Mommy is hungry and needs pizza, is it best to slice through her Krazy-glued mouth with an Exacto Blade?

The answers to these and other questions can be found in the new Ulrich Seidl production of Goodnight Mommy, the directorial debut of his longtime collaborator Veronika Franz and her life partner Severin Fiala.

To say the film is creepy is, at the very least, an understatement, but creepy it is and scarier than most anything you'll set your eyeballs upon this year. Oh, and yes, the movie provides plenty of chuckles of the most malevolent kind to catch you off guard and relieve (somewhat) the unbearable tension.

It also helps that for most of its running time, the picture is stylishly directed and gorgeously shot on REAL FILM - yes, REAL 35MM film.

Goodnight Mommy is a deceptively simple tale about a pair of identical twins (Elias Schwarz, Lukas Schwarz) who welcome Mommy (Susanne Wuest) home after a stay in the hospital for extreme reconstructive surgery. Mom is covered in Mummy-like bandages, barely hiding the puffy, swelling bruises and pus-oozing scars, so even she can forgive the boys if they don't immediately recognize her as their mother.

Alas, Mommy's become both addled and stern - reasonable enough to anyone who can understand the extreme pain she's in which must be quelled by oodles of happy drugs, but to the boys, it's cause for alarm, especially since Mom is being extra-cruel and downright dismissive of one of the twin brothers. It also doesn't hurt matters that Mom has poisoned a stray cat the lads have brought into the home after rescuing it from an ancient crypt beneath a forgotten graveyard just outside the deep woods surrounding the stately modern country home.

Not only does Mommy not look like Mommy, she's not even behaving like Mommy. If she's an imposter, the lads needs answers and they'll stop at nothing to get the truth.

Nothing!

This is an incredibly well made film on virtually every level. Mr. Seidl, one of the world's greatest living filmmakers proves to be an ideal producer and mentor for this project. In both documentary (Animal Love) and drama (Dog Days), he's demonstrated an uncanny ability to uproot and expose humanity in the most abominably extreme human behaviour. Such is the case here and it's no surprise that half of the directorial team, Veronika Franz, has been Seidl's chief screenwriter and collaborator on so many of his greatest works.

The pace is stately, but never dull. The chills and weirdness are stretched to expertly rendered degrees which feel almost unendurable, but endure we do. It's simply impossible to take one's eyes off the screen. When the visceral horrors begin to ramp up, you might even require an upchuck receptacle.

There's one unfortunate detail to the whole affair which does indeed disappoint. The story is saddled with a rather obvious red herring which you occasionally hope won't bear fruit in the expected manner. When the BIG REVEAL happens, it's everything you've been praying against. It works on an almost satisfactorily and rudimentary level, but is a huge comedown from a film that you feel is taking turns you'd never expect. For the most part, you don't expect any direction it goes in, except for this one thing. When a trope is meant to throw you off the scent and becomes the very stench wafting across your nostrils, you can't help but leave the cinema a tiny bit dejected.

All that said, though, it's a terrific feature debut which, at the very least points to eventual work that will live up to the promise displayed and might, if Franz plays her cards right, match that of her magnificent mentor.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** 3-Stars

Goodnight Mommy played in both the TIFF 2014 Vanguard series and the 2015 Fantasia Film Festival.

THE DEMOLISHER - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Strange Canuck Vigilante Thriller unveiled at 2015 FANTASIA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL in Montreal

The Demolisher (2015)
Dir. Gabriel Carrer
Starring: Ry Barrett, Tianna Nori, Jessica Vano

Review By Greg Klymkiw

After policewoman Samantha (Tianna Nori) suffers a near-fatal attack (after attempting to rescue a baby in the midst of a devil worship ceremony, no less), she's crippled for life and forced to haul about in a wheelchair. Her angry hubby Bruce (Ry Barrett), a cable repair technician goes completely bunyip. (Where have we heard about el-sicko cable guys before?) Night after night, he dons mega-protective armour, a creepy helmet with a stylish visor and armed with a nice selection of weaponry, he stalks the late-night streets looking for scumbags - any scumbags - that he can take down and send straight to Hell.

Seems reasonable enough, yes?

Eventually, however, it becomes obvious that Bruce is no longer bunyip for mere revenge, he's just plain bunyip and desires to kill, period. After getting a taste of murder pure and simple (an enjoyable murder as it's perfectly justified), he targets Marie (Jessica Vano), an innocent young jogger who just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Thus begins a terrifying night for her as she's stalked by a madman bent upon snuffing her lights out.

Okay, so The Demolisher is clearly one of the strangest, most perverse vigilante movies I've seen in quite some time, possibly ever to be honest. Audiences looking for carnage will get more than their fair share, but I suspect that the only killing they'll enjoy in any sort of traditional Death Wish or Walking Tall manner is the one horrific murder of someone who is not a criminal (though like I said earlier, the fuckwad clearly deserves it).

Audiences will also be surprised and possibly delighted with the clear thought that's gone into the screenplay in terms of examining a diseased mind under pressure. There are clearly and deliberately paced moments within the oddball domestic set-up which proceed with very little dialogue and mostly some extremely effective looks and silences. This is probably a good thing since some of the dialogue proves a bit clunky in these moments, the lion's share of clunkiness wafting out of poor Samantha's mouth and occasionally affecting Tianna Nori's otherwise good work.

There's also one ludicrous scene where crippled Samantha manages to crawl into the bathtub with her brooding hubby. In theory, I'm all there. In practise, not so much. If you're going to have a babe join her hubby in the tubby, why the fuck would she be wearing her goddamn nightie? I can understand not getting a nice glimpse of dick, though I'd have been most appreciative of the view myself, but seriously, to not have the hot cripple doff her garments for a loll-about in the tub is tantamount to B-Movie heresy. (And frankly, seeing anyone in a bathtub with clothes on is just plain dumb.)

My fetishes aside, Ry Barrett is effectively stalwart and brooding throughout and what can be said about Jessica Vano other than her fine performance? Well, uh, she's, like, a babe, and we get to see her running around in fear for half the movie. Vano's hot running around rivals that of Penelope Ann Miller tear-assing about in The Relic. That takes some doing. Seriously, hot chicks running around in terror is a blessing, not a curse. Ain't nothing sexier than that. But enough of my fetishes.

I loved the look of this movie. It's just plain ugly for much of its running time, but intentionally so. The lighting and compositions expertly capture both the seediness of its locations as well as the cold, impersonal, almost dank qualities of the interiors. The score by Glen Nicholls is especially dynamite, evoking an eerie blend of 80s funk-drone and just plain effective thriller cues.

And there is a definite 80s feel to the picture (for some, this is better, for others, it'll be worse), but I found the entire tone of the movie fascinating. Once again we have a Canadian genre film with its own distinct indigenous style. Yes, it's clearly inspired by an American tradition of such pictures, but its narrative, look and pace are Canadian in all the best ways - proving again that having a diametrically opposed north of the 49th parallel aesthetic allows for a wholly unique take on genre cinema.

Director Gabriel Carrer might have pulled off the near impossible here by creating a film that shares aesthetic DNA twixt the sad ennui of Atom Egoyan's best work and famed 80s schlockmeister James (The Exterminator) Glickenhaus. It's a film that revels in its exploitative roots whilst examining them also, but without being moralistic. Only in Canada, you say? That's a good thing!

That said, if a movie is going to have some devil worship involving a baby as a sacrifice, could it not at least have the good taste to show the little nipper being hacked open? But, enough of my fetishes.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** 3-Stars

The Demolisher enjoys its World Premiere at the 2015 Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal. For dates, times and tix, visit the festival website HERE. The Demolisher is represented world wide by the visionary Canadian genre specialists Raven Banner.

WE ARE STILL HERE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Creepily Effective Old-Fashioned Haunted House Thriller at the 2015 FANTASIA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL in Montreal

We Are Still Here (2015)
Dir. Ted Geoghegan
Starring: Barbara Crampton,
Andrew Sensenig, Larry Fessenden, Lisa Marie, Monte Markham

Review By Greg Klymkiw

There's always room for a solid "things that go bump in the night" haunted house picture, so long as the proceedings are handled with proficiency and a minimum degree of stupidity. Ted Geoghan's first feature film We Are Still Here succeeds on both counts.

Yes, we've been down this road before. The Sacchettis are an attractive, well-to-do couple still grieving from the accidental death of their only son. They've chosen flight from familiar surroundings to heal and move into a gorgeous, old house in the wide open spaces of Inbred-ville, New England. Situated on a gorgeous estate, isolated, but not too far away from a nearby village (full of inbreds), the couple appear to have nailed the real estate find of the century.

Uh-oh.

We all know that when an old, long-unoccupied house in the middle of nowhere goes for a steal, there's bound to be some ectoplasmic shenanigans going on. Luckily, we are not the Sacchettis. We are the audience. We know better, which is always a good deal for us, yes?

Anne (played by the always-delectable Barbara Crampton of Re-Animator fame) feels her son's spirit is still with them and that he's followed them to their new digs. Paul (Andrew Sensenig), being the lowly male of the equation is far more practical about such matters, but he sensitively humours her and agrees to a visit from their longtime spiritualist friends. May (played by the gorgeous Lisa Marie of Vampira fame in Ed Wood and unceremoniously booted by director Tim Burton in favour of the ratty-mopped Helena Bonham Carter) is psychic. Her hubby Jacob (the always wonderful character actor and Habit director Larry Fessenden, looking more like Jack Nicholson in The Shining with every picture) is a dope-smoking old hippie with new-agey powers in crystals and seances.

It's always convenient when bereaved couples know spiritualist couples. It makes horror movies so much more lively, yes?

Of course, what would a New England community of inbreds be without a couple of real whoppers of inbreds? Creepy old neighbour Dave McCabe (Monte Markham) and his nutty wife Maddie (Susan Gibney) pop by for a friendly visit wherein we get all the dope on the Sacchettis' new home.

It's an old funeral parlour, situated on unhallowed ground and formerly run by a family who pilfered bodies and sold them to a nearby medical college. Or so we're told.

Yes, it's always convenient when bereaved couples move into old funeral parlours on unhallowed ground formerly run by inbreds who sold bodies to be sliced and diced by med students. It's even more convenient that the inbreds might actually have been innocent of this crime and murdered by the inbred townspeople.

Are you with me? Good. This is what our impish filmmaker has laid out for the mega-scares to follow. Though screenwriter Geoghegan doesn't really go beyond the stock tropes of most ghostly melodramas, Geoghegan the director does go through some mighty impressive gymnastics of helmsmanship to knock us on our collective butts all the way through this effective chiller.

Babe-O-Licious Barbara Crampton as HOT now
as she was in 1985's RE-ANIMATOR. Hubba-Hubba!

The real star of the film is Canadian cinematographer Karim Hussain who superbly handles Geoghegan's morbidly creepy mise-en-scene with considerable aplomb. The camera feels like a character unto itself - its gorgeous compositions and lighting make us feel like something genuinely unholy is actively observing the proceedings whilst occasionally making us feel like we're seeing stuff that may or may not be there. Hussain moves the camera so deftly and subtly that we're often chilled to the bone - not just by the gorgeously captured winter climes surrounding the house, but by the manner in which it glides and/or settles upon the dank details of the house and especially, the basement. The chilling musical score and alternately shivery, heart-attack-inducing sound design are also brilliantly rendered, giving us ample creeps and shocks.

Especially in the basement.

Oh yes! 'Tis always convenient for a haunted house to have a clammy basement with a boiler on the fritz causing temperatures to rise and a strange wall that supposedly has nothing behind it.

Then, there are the ghastly apparitions and, the blood.

They are plenty ghastly.

And yes, there is plenty of blood. (And thanks to a lovely Straw Dogs-inspired climax, the picture racks up a very impressive body count.)

All that said, if you're looking for a bit more meat on the bones of the bereaved couple horror scenario, you're not going to find it here. There's potential to have steered the film into the complex, layered territory of Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now, but Geoghegan seems content to keep us in the shock-o-rama territory of his more clear influence, the grand Italian shock-meister Lucio (The Beyond, The House by the Cemetery) Fulci.

I accept this.

The movie forced me to soil myself on numerous occasions. Luckily, I've learned long ago to always wear adult diapers for my sojourns into the cinematic territory of haunted house thrillers. Thankfully, this one is up there with those pictures keen on skilfully delivering all the visceral thrills and chills which, ultimately, are the hallmark for all fine horror pictures.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** 3-Stars

We Are Still Here from Dark Sky and Raven Banner enjoyed its Canadian Premiere at the 2015 Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal. For further info, visit the fest's website HERE.

BITE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Zesty Cinematic Steam Table Buffet o' Babes & Viscous Discharge Premieres @ the 2015 FANTASIA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL in Montreal.

Bite (2014)
Dir. Chad Archibald
Scr. Jayme Laforest
Starring: Elma Begovic,
Annette Wozniak, Denise Yuen, Jordan Gray, Lawrene Denkers

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Director Chad Archibald finally delivers the picture I suspected he had in him to serve up. After his competently-directed The Drownsman, which mostly suffered from a dreadful script and ludicrous premise, he moved on to co-direct the brilliant science fiction thriller Ejecta. Now he's back behind the camera all on his lonesome, with a terrific cast, stunning special effects and most importantly, a cool premise from his original story which has made for a solid screenplay written by Jayme Laforest.

It's safe to say that Bite claims its rightful (and deserved) position amongst the thrilling explosion of original Canadian horror films taking the world by storm. This enchantingly vile, sick and grotesque B-movie melange, resides in a magical place twixt the hot-babe-going-bunyip antics of Roman Polanski's Repulsion and David Cronenberg's body-decimation gymnastics from The Fly.

Almost needless to say, but I'll say it anyway, Bite is gloriously replete with truck-loads of pus, vomit, gooey sores, icky vaginal discharge and plenty o' viscous ooze (much of it resembling caviar and glass eyes swimming oh-so succulently in deliquescent pools of upchuck) - all of which has been designed to tantalize genre geeks the world over.

Oh, and of course, the movie has plenty of babes in it. Alas, they're never nekkid, but at least we see 'em in bikinis and underwear. (These are tender mercies, but we'll take what we can get.) Nudity or no nudity, this is one solid horror picture.

It's ultimately rooted in good writing which Bite is nicely blessed with. Good movies will almost always have a nice simple narrative to allow for all manner of layering and shading to adorn it and I'm delighted to report that much of what leaps from the page allows Archibald as a director to gussy things up as much as he likes with all manner of perverse touches.

The film opens by telling its twisted tale via home movie footage. This briefly gave me a sinking feeling, but as the subjects were babes who also delivered good performances and uttered some decent dialogue in a relatively realistic setting, I perked myself up and decided to settle in despite my feelings of, "Oh Christ, not another found footage horror film." Cleverly, this stuff doesn't last too long and is, in fact, a stylish manner in which to begin the story which eventually slams into full-on classical visual storytelling mode. (The footage is used later to only move the story forward in realistic contexts to which I was also grateful for.)

Casey (Elma Begovic, a striking exotic beauty with talent to burn) is about to get married. She and her girlfriends Jill (Denise Wozniak) and Kirsten (Denise Yuen) head to a vacation resort paradise carved out of the jungles of an otherwise foul Central American Third World Hell-Hole. It is here where two nasty things happen to our heroine.

Firstly, she gets herself juiced-up and Rohip-nolled by a handsome scumbag who takes her out onto the beach, delivers a solid ploughing to her limp body, steals all her stuff (including her engagement ring) and leaves our lithe lassie lying alone on the sand, dazed and confused.

Secondly, she and her lady friends veer off the beaten track for some fun and frolic. Uh, gals, this is a loathsome Third World jungle; shouldn't you hang back at the resort? Well, if they did, there might not be a movie (or any horror movie for that matter). When our comely damsels take a dip in a jungle watering hole, our already-beleagured heroine gets a painful bite by some unseen bug (or pond creature) in the murky slough they go splashing about in.

Upon returning to Canada, Casey begins to suffer some mighty perplexing and disturbing symptoms. In addition to developing a very heightened sense of hearing, a nasty rash and almost perpetual nausea, the bite on her thigh starts to fester into weird mini-cauliflowered-skin-tag-like globules full of pus.

Adding insult to injury, she discovers she's pregnant.

At this point, the likelihood of her spawning something truly horrific is pretty much going to be a given and slowly, but surely (and disgustingly) she begins to . . . shall we say, transform.

As a creepily painful biological decimation roils within her, she ironically begins to see clearly how so many things in her life are not as peachy-keen as they once seemed. Her friends appear well-meaning to a fault, almost callous. One of them even has designs upon her fiancé.

(Now, if you want, I can get a tad egg-headed here and say there's plenty of noggin-stimulating thematic stuff to chew on - you know, a woman experiences painful physical transformation to yield terrible truths about herself and the world around her, but I'll leave this to all the Women's Studies PhD candidates in the audience to flesh out.)

Speaking of terrible truths, Jared (Jordan Grey), Casey's hubby-to-be, is a self-absorbed knob and Mama's Boy who complains that his night of nookie is coming to an abrupt end after they've attempted to boink and he grabs a fistful of pus from the festering bite on her thigh and she runs to the can in order to woof her guts out.

As for Jared's Mama (Lawrene Denkers in an especially creepy performance), this is one foul, nasty, over-protective harridan. Not only does she question Casey's suitability as a wife to her precious sonny-boy, but does so with all manner of grotesquely over-the-top viciousness that gives Piper Laurie in Carrie a nice run for her money.

Folks, this movie's not about to get pleasant - ever!

Will things take a turn for the worst?

Will murder be on the menu?

Uh, ya think?

And whatever you do, try not eat anything before seeing this movie. Oh, and as a courtesy to the cinema management, consider bringing a receptacle along in case you need to join Casey's vomit party and eject your own manner of bilious globs of puke.

Because you know, it's that kind of movie.

Bon appétit!!!

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***½ Three=and=a=half=-Stars

Bite enjoys its World Premiere at the 2015 Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal. For tix, times and venues, visit the Fest's website HERE.

CATCH ME DADDY - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Gritty British thriller set against the backdrop of Pakistani "Honour" Killings perpetrated against "rebellious" women @ 2015 FANTASIA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL in Montreal

Once again, the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal proves that it is not only on the cutting edge of cinema in Canada, but that more "establishment" festivals in the country risk losing a genuine leading edge if they keep pandering to mainstream sensibilities. Catch Me Daddy had its World Premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May of 2014, then followed by important berths at Karlovy Vary, London and Rotterdam among others, but nothing in Canada, until now.

That the film is finally having its Canadian Premiere this summer in Montreal suggests to me that the film's movers and shakers (whomever they might have been), held out for a more "prestigious" Canadian fall showcase, skipping the 2014 Fantasia spring/summer period and then got fucked over by not landing a spot in one of Canada's more "establishment" festivals, some of which, no doubt, had far too many straight to VOD films from the major studios and ho-hum mainstream Oscar bait to litter their otherwise stellar programmes with.

The winner here, is clearly Fantasia and their audiences (both domestic and international). They benefit from a first Canadian look at this powerful MUST-SEE debut from director Daniel Wolfe.

Catch Me Daddy (2014)
Sir. Daniel Wolfe
Scr. Matthew & Daniel Wolfe
Cin. Robbie Ryan
Starring: Sameena Jabeen Ahmed, Conor McCarron,
Ali Ahmad, Wasim Zakir, Barry Nunney, Gary Lewis,
Anwar Hussain, Adnan Hussain, Shoby Kaman, Nichola Burley

Review By Greg Klymkiw

A great bird landed here.
Its song drew men out of rock,
Living men out of bog and heather
Its song put a light in the valley
And harness on the long moors.
Its song brought a crystal from space
And set it in men’s heads.
Then the bird died.
Its giant bones
Blackened and became a mystery.
The crystal in men’s heads
Blackened and fell to pieces.
The valleys went out
The moorlands broke loose.

- Ted Hughes, “Heptonstall Old Church”

When a film opens with a recitation of the great Ted Hughes poem "Heponstall Old Church" over images of the terrible beauty of the West Yorkshire moors, you know you're either going to be watching one of the more pretentious wank-fests of the year or a genuinely terrific picture. Happily it's the latter. Music video director Daniel Wolfe and his co-writing brother Matthew made their feature debut with Catch Me Daddy and have indeed delivered one of the best UK films in years.

Blending the grim, gritty kitchen sink realism of such British New Wavers as Tony Richardson (The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner), Linday Anderson (This Sporting Life) and Jack Clayton (Room at the Top) with healthy dollops of 70s existential crime dramas by the likes of James Toback (Fingers) and Karel Reizs (The Gambler), a clear and healthy respect for classical filmmakers a la John Ford as well as their own youthful contemporary sensibilities born out of making music videos for some of the coolest bands in the world (Shoes and Plan B), Catch Me Daddy not only deserves a rightful place amongst the best Britain has to offer, but bodes well for future endeavours from the Wolfe Brothers.

Shot on real 35mm film by one of the UK's greatest living cinematographers Robbie Ryan (Fishtank, Ginger & Rosa, Red Road, Philomena and Jimmy's Hall), Catch Me Daddy is about Laila (Sameena Jabeen Ahmed), a young British-Pakistani woman who lives out a peaceful existence with Aaron (Connor McCarron) her happy-go-lucky (and decidedly not of colour) boyfriend. They live in a supremely depressing bit of UK anal leakage on the moors, an icky trailer park overlooking a series of ugly, traffic-congested highways. By day, Aaron boils down the drug content of what appear to be non-prescription codeine pills and takes nice long walks, whilst Laila happily works as a hairdresser's assistant in a local beauty salon. By night (and days off), the couple have a loving, carefree existence.

This is all about to end, though.

Laila, a "disobedient" young lady with pink hair, has run away from her abusive father Tariq (Wasim Zakir) and brother Zaheer (Ali Ahmad). In so doing, she has brought deep shame to her traditionally patriarchal Pakistani immigrant family. She must pay and pay dearly for her disrespectful disregard of the family's honour. Tariq, a successful restaurant owner has hired two sets of thugs, working in tandem to hunt her down and bring her back for "punishment".

"Punishment", in a worst-case scenario could mean death by way of an "Honour Killing". Quite popular in Pakistan amongst extremely devout Muslim families, this incredibly backwards tradition has found its way into the fabric of Western society. (Canada is still reeling from the murder of four teenage girls in 2009, detailed in Rob Tripp's book "Without Honour, the True Story of the Shafia Family and the Kingston Canal Murders").

What follows in Catch Me Daddy is a terrifying, living nightmare as the couple try to flee two sets of violent thugs, one group comprised of caucasians, the others Pakistani. The Wolfe Brothers have cannily framed the story in an almost neo-realist fashion (with a mixture of professional and non-professional actors and actual living, breathing locations), parcelling out information on a need-to-know basis as the film bounces between the couple and the thugs.

Placing a high degree of emphasis upon the happiness experienced by Laila and Aaron might seem overtly manipulative to some, but they would be wrong about that. The carefree existence works in marked contrast to the final hour of the film, which is set amidst the darkness of night. The bottom line is that, as a thriller, the film is genuinely scary because it's impossible to erase the clear, fresh, genuinely happy air of Laila's freedom (her friendship with the ladies in the beauty parlour, her daily ritual of ordering a custom-designed milkshake and the couple's sheer joy in each other's company).

One of the most moving sequences set to celluloid in recent years involves Laila and Aaron in their trailer as it's transformed from the outer shell of its shabbiness into a glistening palace of joy, a kind of Heaven on Earth as the young lovers share some weed and listen to Patti Smith's "Horses", to which Laila performs a dance of such abandon, it's impossible not to be soaring with her. Where director Wolfe brings his music video experience to the fore so that it works dramatically is when the song remains mixed over the soundtrack at the same pitch in the trailer where it is clearly source music and then continues when the scene shifts to the thugs tracking the couple down and the music becomes score. This is a simple and pure use of music and picture which memorably and brilliantly accentuates our emotional response to the couple's happiness in clear juxtaposition with the mean-spirited, repressed evil that stalks them and gets ever-closer.

Throughout the film Wolfe, as a director, joyously blends the naturalistic with good, old fashioned classical filmmaking which yields a thoroughly compelling drama wherein his stylistic "excess" is indeed an organic part of the whole.

This is great, exciting moviemaking - pure and simple.

Finally, though, we are left with the grim reality of how any number of immigrants (from all ethnicities) choose to bring all their baggage and sick shit with them to the supposedly "New World" in marked contrast to the "freedoms" they're supposed to enjoy. Some might suggest this is a racist attitude, but in fact, it's a hard reality that we must continue to face. (God knows my "own" people, Eastern Europeans, continued to bring their sick patriarchal shit with them, which most recently resulted in the horrendous sexual slavery of women during the 90s and early 2000s - not just in their "old" worlds, but the "new" also).

Catch Me Daddy mounts with horror upon horror and when the film reaches its ultimate confrontation between father and daughter, one can't help but be reminded of the harrowing moments in John Ford's The Searchers between Ethan (John Wayne) and his "gone-Injun'" niece (Natalie Wood). Wolfe, like Ford, takes us into a melange of conflicting emotions here, but whereas Ford is lyrically, sadly elegiac, Wolfe gives us something altogether his own.

We are left, in the end, with a plea for love and tolerance, but it is grimly infused with sheer horror.

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

Catch Me Daddy enjoys its Canadian Premiere at the 2015 Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal. For dates, times and tix, visit the festival's website HERE.

CASH ONLY / SLUMLORD - Reviews By Greg Klymkiw - Landlord Movies X 2 invade FANTASIA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2015 in Montreal

I love the fact that there are not one, but two movies enjoying their World Premieres at the 2015 Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal which have landlords as the main characters. We all know landlords and mostly, we hate them, so to have a couple of familiar entities for us to relate to and/or fear, goes a long way in rooting genre cinema in the best territory imaginable - worlds we're all too familiar with, at least from our end of the spectrum.

Each film in its own fashion, seeks to present unique perspectives of their respective landlords to fill in blanks which, our common experiences might not be all that familiar with. Alas, to steal the title of an Agnes Varda film in order to present a sweeping critical summation of both pictures, one sings, the other doesn't.

SODOMY - Albanian style (above)
MASTURBATION - Surveillance Cam style (below)

Cash Only (2015)
Dir. Malik Bader
Scr. Nickola Shreli
Starring: Nickola Shreli, Stivi Paskoski, Danijela Stajnfeld

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Cash Only is one of the best low budget independent indigenously-produced regional films of the new millennium. It's also a damn fine crime thriller rooted in worlds we've seldom experienced.

It's a story ripped from the contemporary hell-hole of Detroit, Michigan. This once great burgh (America's genuine "Motor City" and the birthplace of the Motown sound) has continued to crumble into an inner-city nightmare that brings us closer to the notion of the Third-World existence that's been increasingly plaguing much of the United States, one of the world's richest, most powerful nations. (If you haven't seen the great documentary Detropia, feel free to read my review HERE, and of course, see the movie to fill you in more on this sorry state of affairs.)

Cash Only begins with a ticking time clock for landlord Elvis Martini (Nickola Shreli, also the film's screenwriter), one which seems challenging, but not insurmountable. As the film progresses, however, that clock starts ticking triple-time. Not only does he need to stave off the bank from foreclosing, but he's in deep with a variety of friends and loan sharks.

However, once he's plunged into a fathomless pit of debt with a vicious Balkan pimp, all bets are off. Additionally beleaguered with haunting memories of accidentally (and drunkenly) causing the death of the woman he loved, as well as trying to fulfill his myriad of duties as a landlord, he's soon in the maddest dash of his life to both attain redemption and rescue his little girl who's been kidnapped and held for ransom so that he'll cough up the usurious demands of the villain.

Cash Only is a character-driven descent into a milieu with its own rules and levels of brutality that many of us can't even begin to fathom. Writer Shreli and director Malik Bader plunge us into a grungy and brutal world in ways that only indigenous, regional filmmakers seem capable of doing in these otherwise dark days of American cinema. The neighbourhood and its denizens all have the foul whiff of reality. Joining forces with last year's astounding British crime drama Hyena, Cash Only immerses us in an ethnic crime world that gives both Italian and Russian mobs a run for their money. (Gotta love the Albanian Mob! These guys leave the rest behind as so much dust in the wind!)

The movie is replete with solid performances right across the board, though Stivi Paskoski as Dino the dogfight-promoter/pimp is especially brilliant - one look at the guy scares the shit out of you, but once he opens his mouth, you know our hero (and we, the audience) are in for some major, harrowing carnage.

Malik Bader's taut direction delivers increasing levels of edge-of-the-seat suspense and the searing savagery that's inherent in Shreli's grungy, realism-infused script. The picture is expertly shot and cut, all of which contributes to a film that expertly uses the crime genre's tropes to hit a few familiar satisfying beats whilst maintaining a tone of freshness and originality from beginning to end.

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

Slumlord (2015)
Dir. Victor Zarcoff
Starring: Neville Archambault, Sean Carrigan, Brianne Moncrief, Sarah Baldwin

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Slumlord begins promisingly enough with banks of surveillance monitors and the chilling statistics of just how many people are being illegally spied upon without their knowledge. We then meet creepy Gerald (Neville Archambault) in a "spy" store where a sleazy salesman is detailing all the joys of owning surveillance equipment to which Gerald responds most favourably. In short order, Gerald is outfitting a lovely suburban home with an elaborate series of cameras in every conceivable nook and cranny which can yield as many good views as possible.

So far, so good, though one is wondering when he'll be installing the equipment in the sleazy properties that a slumlord would actually be presiding over.

Well, it doesn't take long to realize Gerald is not a slumlord (other than the fact that he lives in a dank, dark dwelling himself). He shows a young married couple the suburban home and they happily take it. Our focus, often mediated via Gerald's surveillance equipment, shifts to the couple. Wifey is preggers and hubby seems like a cold, distant prick. Eventually he ends up having a torrid affair with one of his employees, a babe-o-licious creature who keeps pressuring him to leave his wife.

The lovely suburban dwelling, however, is meant to be a second chance for the couple's on-the-rocks marriage and hubby soon comes to his senses and decides to break the affair off. Alas, his lover starts turning into Glenn Close from Fatal Attraction.

Adding insult to injury, Gerald keeps secretly entering the house; he knows when the couple is going to be gone and for how long since he appears to not do much of anything save for spying on them and masturbating. In the house, he snoops around, puts a toothbrush in his foul mouth to soil it, then installs even more surveillance equipment (include a poopy-cam in the toilet bowl). He also constructs a secret prison/dungeon deep in the bowels of the basement.

Eventually this all leads to a variety of carnage and middling suspense until the picture delivers a "surprise" ending one can see coming pretty early in the proceedings. The performances are decent (Archambault especially delivering the sicko goods with considerable aplomb), but much of the film's promise, which we're set up with by both the title and the evocative opening, pretty much goes the way of the Dodo and we're left with little more than a typical low-budget thriller set mostly in one location, but sans the truly demented layering of a Polanski or Hitchcock.

Poor Archambault is clearly a terrific actor, but he needs to work overtime here to create some semblance of a character. Not that we'd even need that much: Norman Bates in Psycho had Mother, Mark Lewis in Peeping Tom had his childhood of psychological torture at the hands of his Dad and even the three brothers and Grandpa in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre had the evocative backdrop of shifting slaughter-methods at the nearby abattoir.

Here though, we have a lonely guy (who's not even a slumlord as the title suggests) whose fetishistic desires allow him to show a tiny bit of compassion to the woman who's being abused by her husband's neglect and infidelity. This could have been interesting, but it's simply used as an excuse for eventual carnage and by the end, we still have no sense who this person really is.

And, of course, there's the hackneyed, all-too-forseeable "surprise" ending which the movie leads up to.

Non-discriminating fans will get some decent gore for their money and a genuinely grotesque killer, but beyond that, they're not going to be getting much more. Even the ambitions of the character-driven elements of a marriage in crisis has little appeal since most of the juxtapositional suspense elements hit their marks so predictably.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ** 2-Stars

Cash Only and Slumlord are both enjoying their World Premiere at the 2015 Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal. For Tix, times and playdates, visit the festival website HERE.

BUNNY THE KILLER THING - Review By Greg Klymkiw - It's the Kaurismäkis with the DTs directing a horror film about a half-man-half-rabbit-monster in search of pussy. The COUNTDOWN TO FANTASIA 2015 in Montreal continues.

A WARNING to all who see Bunny the Killer Thing during the 2015 edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal (or, for that matter, anytime, anywhere you see the movie): DO NOT leave during the end title credits. If you do, you'll MISS one of the most delightful after-credit sequences you'll EVER see. Besides, the credit roll is accompanied by more great music which has been wending its way throughout the film. This is major league DOUBLE-DOUBLE.

Bunny The Killer Thing
Dir. Joonas Makkonen
Starring: Jari Manninen, Veera W. Vilo, Enni Ojutkangas, Katja Jaskari, Alisa Kyllönen, Anniina Koivisto, Marcus Massey, Vincent Tsang, Orwi Imanuel Ameh, Mia Ehrnrooth, Gareth Lawrence, Henry Saari, Juha-Matti Halonen

Review By Greg Klymkiw

For those of you old enough to have been stoked by the tagline for Richard Donner's 1979 Superman:

You'll believe a man can fly!

Allow me to present a contemporary Finnish equivalent:

You'll believe an erect penis can dangle in front of the windshield of a speeding car! (Even though, upon impact, the scrotum has been flattened into a crimson-coloured pancake!)

Bunny The Killer Thing coquettishly tempts me to pull a Joe Bob Briggs (the immortal drive-in movie critic from Dallas, Texas), and provide my own version of his trademark checklists including a bare-breast count, an aardvarking count, a body count, a pint count of blood spilled and, among other delectables, a description of the various "fu" elements; though I'll solemnly declare - here and now - that this jaw-dropper of a picture is amply endowed with more Penis-Fu than any movie ever made.

Ever.

There's even a Penis-Cam.

All said, I desperately wish I knew what mind-forming liquid comestibles Finnish filmmakers were breast-fed with, because time in, time out, this country not only churns out great hockey players, but directors who deliver some of the most hilarious, original and provocative motion pictures in the world.

Bunny The Killer Thing is the first feature from the 29-year-old Finnish wunderkind Joonas Makkonen who allows an animated bunny to squirt globs of bunny cum all over his director credit during the opening titles. Makkonen's previous efforts include well over 20 short films, including a pint-sized version of this full length celebration of delightfully transgressive poor taste.

Here he delivers a nicely crafted horror-comedy that serves up a rich karjalanpaisti of sex, shocks, laughs, gore, plenty of babes (including the sexiest of all, BABES WITH GUNS), a trio of hunky lads with nefarious activity on their minds, mega-action of all manner, lesbo action, homo action, masturbation action, aardvarking galore and more penises (I prefer penii) than you can shake a stick at. (And believe me when I say that plenty of penii are shaken in our general direction.) Makkonen directs this picture within an inch of his life and his insanely transgressive screenplay (the story co-written by producer Miika J. Norvanto) offers much in the way of homage to some of the worst 80s-horror-VHS-boom trash-fests while, at the same time, offering enough original twists, turns, knee-slappers and jaw-droppers to please fans of both the discriminating and indiscriminating persuasions.

In a hazelnut shell, a mad Dr. Moreau-like scientist in a remote winter vacation spot in Finland, kidnaps a best-selling author and turns him into a monster: a giant upright half-man-half-bunny-rabbit with a penis so large it makes the schwance of late porn stud Johnny "The Wadd" Holmes look like a bite-sized Haribo gummy worm.

But Why? No, seriously. WHY? Why turn someone, a celebrity no less, into a man-bunny monster bent on raping anything with a hole? That's the profound mystery at the core of this movie. When the true and utterly repulsive nature of the mystery is finally revealed, you'll not only get a humungous shock (along with the characters who discover it with utter disgust on their faces), but you might also die from laughter.

In any event, when the man-bunny escapes, a living hell is just round the corner from a group of vacationing 20-somethings (including a whole whack of babes and a passel of dweeby guys). When our vacationing young 'uns meet up with a trio of hunky Brits stranded on the winter highway, they offer to take them in for the night in their cottage so their resident happy-go-lucky-metal-loving alcoholic inbred redneck grease monkey Mise (an utterly brilliant comedic performance by Jari Manninen) can fix their car.

The trio appear to have a mysterious agenda which is, no doubt, tied into the man-bunny-monster, but with their vehicle out of commission, two of the three, decide to make the best of the situation. Their dour, mean-spirited leader Lucas (Marcus Massey) refrains from all frivolity and wishes his companions would do likewise. Dreamy Vincent (Vincent Tsang) hits it off immediately with blonde babe Sara (Enni Ojutkangas), which causes considerable consternation roiling within her brunette babe friend Nina (Veera W. Vilo) who carries the unrequited torch of Lesbos for her. The equally dreamy (and coffee creamy) Tim (Orwi Imanuel Ameh) is, for his part, counting on a trip to the Greek Isles as his drunken frolics with the burly, bearded bear of a man, Mise are charged with all manner of forbidden fruit possibilities.

And then there's that pesky Bunny. He's got a raging hard-on and he keeps bellowing for pussy. Oh, and he gets his fair share and then some. Allow me to remind you that all holes are pussies to the man-bunny-monster. This would, by the way, include gouged eye sockets.

By the end of this film, I had no idea what in the hell I just watched. You might feel likewise, but I'm sure you, like I, will have laughed so hard, upchucked several times and soared higher than a kite amidst the heavenly splendours of a film which knows absolutely no boundaries. Can a film actually be good natured and funny, even though it features a monster that rapes, a sex trafficking underground involving - Oh Christ, I can't even utter the words without wanting to both vomit and laugh, so I won't - and amidst the gore and sex, a fabulous score and song soundtrack that hammers home the crazed abandon of the whole movie?

What I know is this: Filmmaker Joonas Makkonen is like some crazed version of the Kaurismäkis with the DTs directing a horror film about a half-man-half-rabbit-monster. It's got cult film written all over it and in the immortal words of the aforementioned Drive-In Movie Critic from Dallas, I do indeed say, "Check it out."

Oh, and have I mentioned it's got babes with guns in it?

There's nothing sexier than that!

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

Bunny The Killer Thing is represented by the visionary mad men of Raven Banner Entertainment and enjoys its International Premiere at the 2015 edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal. For dates, times and tix, visit the Festival's website HERE. And get your tix now. This picture has "hanging from the rafters" written all over its happily foul potential. Montreal will never be the same after this one. Neither will you.

ANGUISH - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Supernatural meets Mental Illness @FantAsia2015

Anguish (2015)
Dir. Sonny Mallhi
Starring: Ryan Simpkins, Amberley Gridley,
Annika Marks, Karina Logue, Cliff Chamberlain, Ryan O'Nan

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Two mothers. Two teenage daughters. Bound by tragedy, love and possession.

One mother, Sarah (Karina Logue), loses her daughter, Lucy (Amberley Gridley) in a horrific freak car accident. The other mother, Jessica (Annika Marks), feels like she is losing her daughter, Tess (Ryan Simpkins), to the child's lifelong mental illness which appears to be getting worse. Sarah's guilt is rooted in an argument which led to the accident. Jessica, hoping a change of environment might have alleviated the mental illness, now feels like their move to a new home is contributing to her child's increasing withdrawal.

Sonny Mallhi's deeply moving feature directorial debut is a sensitive, telling exploration of teen ennui and the powerful bond of mothers and daughters. That the story plays out against the subtle, but clearly apparent backdrops of America's financial crisis, as well as that of so many fathers separated from their families to fight a spurious war against terror, are elements which deepen the experience of seeing the film.

As it turns out, the living members of the mother-daughter equation face substantial challenges due to the constant misdiagnoses of the various mental disorders plaguing Tess. The world of medicine and science chooses easy ways out by prescribing one raft of mood-altering medications after another and when all appears lost, the status quo wishes to resort to medical incarceration for "further study".

What nobody considers is that some people, even children, have gifts science knows nothing about (and even if it did, it would refuse to acknowledge such powers). Alas, these gifts and worse yet, the not-knowing atmosphere surrounding them, leads to the kind of trouble that takes Anguish into harrowing directions.

In a nutshell, the picture will scare the crap out of you.

Employing a deft mixture of ultra-creepy quiet with jolting shock cuts, Mallhi's direction is often a wonder of control, especially since he wisely blends all this the very real problem of mental illness amongst so many recent generations of young people with the supernatural. This is played out in a number of ways.

Tess is continually drawn to nocturnal episodes wherein she plops herself down in the bucolic setting their new home borders on, grassy fields, ponds and forests. This is all well and good until very weird and scary shit begins to happen. On an almost daily basis, Tess visits the roadside memorial marker of Lucy, the little girl she's never known. When she befriends Lucy's Mom, Sarah, a book store proprietor, she utters a few words disturbingly familiar to the grief-stricken mother. Every so often, Tess even says things to her own Mom that make no sense, as if they're coming from somewhere or someone else.

In desperation, Jessica seeks solace from the young, well-meaning parish priest (Ryan O'Nan). When Tess speaks privately to the "good" Father, she reveals some private details of his life only he would know. Oh, and of course, the priest's deceased little brother. The clearly freaked-out man of the cloth is convinced an exorcism is in order. Jessica seems willing to consider this since medical science is proving to be useless.

Wisely, Mallhi's screenplay and mise-en-scene don't cheat and lead us down the garden path of "is she or isn't she crazy". The mental illness and mood-altering drugs may well be exacerbating things, but he is always careful, very early on to make sure that everything horrifying is not just from Tess's perspective. When she departs from any of the seemingly supernatural encounters, Mallhi's camera lingers and we feel a definite otherworldly POV.

There are also some nagging visitations as well as physical changes in Tess.

When Tess and Jessica find themselves in Sarah's presence in her home, the very home in which the deceased Lucy lived, hell breaks loose and the film provides several terrifying set pieces.

There is much to admire about Anguish. Mallhi errs, however, as he tries to scare us a few too many times in the picture's first two-thirds and then emphasizes, with added credits providing stats of mental illness and worse, that the film is "inspired" by true events. Who cares? His film is not only a major creep-fest and bonafide horror film that it's completely unnecessary to so obviously root the movie in "truth". Part of the film's success is the "truth" Mallhi infuses into the characters and story, as well as the truth emanating from the fine cast.

Perhaps this is unfair, but I'm going to chalk these aberrations up to meddling from producers and/or distributors. At the very least, I think it's safe to say he got some bad advice and stuck to it. It doesn't ruin the picture, though. It's a bit like a fly in the ointment.

All that aside, Anguish is replete with sensitivity, truth and the need for some audiences to wear adult diapers in case of the soiling which may occur when the movie petrifies us to our very bone marrow.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***½ Three-and-a-half-stars

Anguish premiers at the FantAsia International Film Festival in Montreal

(T)ERROR - Review By Greg Klymkiw - COUNTDOWN TO FANTASIA FILM FEST MONTREAL 2015: Bold, brilliant programming selection for one of the best genre events in the world.

Once again, the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal proves why it is truly one of the greatest genre film events in the world. The 2015 edition has boldly, brilliantly programmed this jaw-droppingly terrifying film which focuses - NOT on the evil of terrorism, but the real evil, the hideous malevolence of the WAR on terror. Dazzling, provocative filmmaking that's worthy of a dazzling, provocative film festival.

If you missed it at Sundance, you have no excuses now. This is one scary mofo of a movie, a ***** 5-Star ABSOLUTE MUST-SEE!!! To paraphrase Liam Neeson, if you miss this film, "I will find you and I will kill you."

(T)ERROR (2015)
Dir. David Felix Sutcliffe, Lyric R. Cabral

Review By Greg Klymkiw

This is one blistering, nerve-jangling political thriller, not unlike the kind of pictures Costa-Gavras (Z, State of Siege) and Alan J. Pakula (The Parallax View) used to make; dark, scary and tingling with urgency, borrowing dollops of ennui from espionage pictures like Martin Ritt's The Spy Who Came in From the Cold and serving it up in a tidy, unbearably haunting neorealist package.

Shariff Torres is our surrogate here for the characters Jean-Louis Trintignant, Warren Beatty and Richard Burton played in the aforementioned thrillers. Torres is an informant for the FBI. His job is to root out terrorists. Well, not just terrorists, but anyone who even sympathizes with them, no matter how remotely. Besides, even if that target is not a terrorist, the FBI could really care less. It's always been very good at building a fake case to nail non-criminals. After all, they need to keep their arrest stats up to ensure the holders of the purse strings that their usefulness as a crime-busting agency is still vital. As such, they'll continue to get the ever-rising carte-blanche support from the government.

It's the American Way. And Canadians, don't get all smug about this. Our Nazi Prime Minister Stephen Harper (pictured below with his spiritual guide on the new Canadian Flag) has rammed through sweeping anti-terrorist powers that might make our neighbours to the South look positively benign.

Sharif Torres has been an informant for two decades. Since America's spurious "War on Terror" began, his duties are becoming ever-dangerous and the guilt he associates with what he's doing to innocent American Muslims is weighing heavily upon him. He'd almost not care about himself; he's in mighty deep, but he has a young son and in this dirty business, family is how "they" get you. He's going to do one last big job, but how easy will it be to "retire" in relative peace?

The eyes of "terror" are always upon him, but who is more terrifying? The Terrorists (if they genuinely exist at all, at least to the degrees with which they're sought out)? Or the FBI?

Torres decides that the best thing to do is make one last cash grab, but in so doing, betray the corrupt hand that feeds him. He invites a documentary film crew to follow him around and give them unprecedented access to espionage activities as well as the lengths to which the FBI will go to nabbing, charging and incarcerating whomever they choose.

The crew captures all the ins and outs of espionage activity. Sometimes, what transpires is so ludicrous and appalling that you find it hard to believe. In fact, if this were a dramatic thriller, you might actually find yourself saying, "I don't buy this." But you do. You buy it hook, line and sinker; not just because the filmmaking is so first-rate, but because this is not fiction, but is, in fact, a documentary. Yes, a fucking documentary - proving again that this is a genre which demands its filmmakers rise above the strictly dull informational approach to their subjects which so many find themselves taking.

Sharif Torres, you see, is a real spy and his victims are real and the filmmakers are very, very real. David Felix Sutliffe (director of the powerful Adama, reviewed HERE) and his co-filmmaker Lyric R. Cabral are indeed the "documentary crew" whom Torres has allowed to detail his actions as dictated by the FBI.

I can assure you, there are few documentaries which ever get so close to such subjects and subject matter as this one does and watching (T)ERROR is pure edge-of-your-seat suspense.

Ah, but there is an even more chilling twist.

The filmmakers decide to also follow the target of Torres's surveillance.

"What the fuck?" you might find yourself exclaiming out loud. "They're following the target, too?" Good Goddamn, this is one scary-ass movie!

(T)ERROR is quite unlike any documentary ever made. It's a film about counterterrorism in which the spy and his target become subjects of the filmmakers - up close and personal. After seeing it, I'm still chilled to the bone. Watching it is so creepy, so horrifying, so downright jaw-agape shocking, you might even consider wearing a pair of adult diapers in case the you-know-what is scared right out of you.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-Stars

(T)ERROR receives its French Canadian Premiere at the Fantasia International Film Festival 2015 in Montreal. For info on dates, times and tix, visit the FANTASIA website HERE. Its International premiere was at Hot Docs 2015 in Toronto and its World Premiere was in Sundance where it won the Special Jury Prize. But screw that, it deserves a goddamned Oscar!

3 MUST-SEE MOVIES @ FANTASIA 2015 - Reviews By Greg Klymkiw: THE EDITOR (Giallo4U), A HARD DAY (Scumbag Dazzler), ROAR (Wilderness Snuff Film 4 the Whole Family) - COUNTDOWN TO FANTASIA 2015 IN MONTREAL

You don't want to miss these 3 terrific movies at the Fantasia International Film Festival 2015 in Montreal. Capsules with links to my full reviews. If you're in Montreal and U miss 'em, you're pretty much a loser, eh.

The Editor (2014)
Dir. Adam Brooks, Matthew Kennedy
Starring: Adam Brooks, Matthew Kennedy, Paz de le Huerta, Udo Kier, Laurence R. Harvey, Tristan Risk, Samantha Hill, Conor Sweeney, Brent Neale, Kevin Anderson, Mackenzie Murdock, John Paizs

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Okay, ladies and gents, strap-on your biggest vibrating butt-plugs and get ready to plop your ass cheeks upon your theatre seat and glue your eyeballs upon The Editor, the newest and most triumphant Astron-6 production to date and easily the greatest thrill ride since Italy spewed out the likes of Tenebre, Inferno, Opera, The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, The Beyond, Strip Nude For Your Killer, Don't Torture a Duckling, Hitch-Hike, Shock, Blood and Black Lace, Twitch of the Death Nerve, Kill Baby Kill and, of course, Hatchet for the Honeymoon. You'll relive, beyond your wildest dreams, those films which scorched silver screens the world over during those lazy, hazy, summer days of Giallo. But, be prepared! The Editor is no mere copycat, homage and/or parody - well, it is all three, but more! Directors Adam Brooks and Matthew Kennedy have created a modern work that holds its own with the greatest gialli of all time.

It's laugh-out-loud funny, grotesquely gory and viciously violent. Though it draws inspiration from Argento, Fulci, Bava, et al, the movie is so dazzlingly original that you'll be weeping buckets of joy because finally, someone has managed to mix-master all the giallo elements, but in so doing has served up a delicious platter of post-modern pasta du cinema that both harkens back to simpler, bloodier and nastier times whilst also creating a piece actually made in this day and age.

What, for example, can anyone say about a film that features the following dialogue:

BLONDE STUD: So where were you on the night of the murder?
BLONDE BABE: I was at home washing my hair and shaving my pussy.

HALLELUJAH!!!!!!!!

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-Stars

Read the full review from my TIFF 2014 coverage HERE

The Editor makes its French Canadian premiere at Fantasia 2015. For dates, times and tix, visit the festival's website HERE.

A Hard Day (aka Kkeut-kka-ji-gan-da) (2014)
Dir. Kim Seong-hun
Starring: Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Jin-woong

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Have you ever had one of those days? You know the kind. We all have them. You're as boiled as a fucking owl on whatever rotgut you've chugged back before getting in your car to drive to the funeral parlour so you can deliver a fond farewell to your mother, laying stiff in her coffin, and then you hit some goddamn pedestrian, killing the bastard, and adding insult to injury, after tossing his sack of potatoes carcass in the trunk, you're stopped and hassled by a bunch of rookie traffic cops doing a spot check. It's a total piss-off, right?

Well, for the irascibly corrupt cop Ko Gun-soo (Lee Sun-kyun), this is but the start of what's going to be a very hard day, indeed.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***½ Three-and-a-half-Stars

Read the full review from my TIFF 2014 coverage HERE

A Hard Day makes its French Canadian premiere at Fantasia 2015. For dates, times and tix, visit the festival's website HERE.

REAL LIONS. REAL PEOPLE. REAL MAULING. REAL CRAZY.

Roar (1981)
Dir. Noel Marshall
Starring: Noel Marshall, Tippi Hedren, Melanie Griffith, Kyalo Mativo

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Roar is clearly one of the most insane movies ever made. Oh hell, let's shoot the works and just declare that it is the most insane movie ever made. It stars 150 lions, tigers and other big cats. No animals were harmed during the making of the movie, but 70 people were.

It all began when actress Tippi Hedren (The Birds, Marnie) was in Africa shooting a movie in the mid-60s when she discovered on safari that an entire abandoned mission had been taken over completely by lions.

Ding!

Light bulb flashes over Tippi's head!

There's a movie in this, she thinks.

Read the full review from my coverage of its Toronto theatrical run at The Royal HERE

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** 3 Stars (though it's really impossible to rate this at all)

ROAR makes its French Canadian premiere at Fantasia 2015. For dates, times and tix, visit the festival's website HERE.

TANGERINE - Guest Review By The Film Corner's Ghee Time Columnist Meraj Dhir - Acclaimed Trangender Drama shot on Apple iPhone 5s in theatrical release via VSC/Magnolia & featured @ FANTASIA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2015 in Montreal

Click image just above to get
more info on MERAJ DHIR

Tangerine (2015)
Dir. Sean S. Baker
Starring: Kiki Kitana Rodriguez,
May Taylor, Karren Karagulian,
Mickey O'Hagan, James Ransone

Guest Review
By Meraj Dhir
The Film Corner's
Ghee Time Columnist


Evocatively unfolding over twenty-four hours, on a sun-kissed So-Cal Christmas Eve, Tangerine ferrets out the hidden subculture of transgender prostitutes, petty pimps, drug dealers and the johns who frequent them. This third feature by writer-director Sean S. Baker (Prince of Broadway, Starlet) further expands his interest in racially and sexually marginalized characters as it explores a decidedly seedy stretch of Santa Monica Boulevard and Highland Avenue.

The picture hits the ground running as prostitute Sin-dee Rella (Kiki Kitana Rodriguez) erupts into an unrestrained fury upon her release from a month-long prison stint. When best friend Alexandra (Mya Taylor) snitches the unwelcome news that Sin-dee's boyfriend/pimp Chester has been cheating on her, the roiling magma is released from its confines, erupting with full ferocity when it's revealed that the target of his attention is not only a white girl, but a “fish” (slang for biological female).

"Like a vagina and everything,” Alexandra squeals.

This results in Sin-dee taking to the streets, with Alexandra in tow, to hook the “fish” whose name they think might be Diana or Dinah or Deena -- and to bust Chester.

The film intercuts this “search and destroy” plotline with the story of taciturn Armenian cab driver, Razmik (Karan Karagulian), as he picks up fares -- each increasingly strange, and oddly, somnolent. While accompanying Sin-dee, Alexandra hands out fliers for a performance she’s giving at a local club later that evening. Alexandra’s nightclub act forms the fulcrum, as well as the midpoint, of the film’s narrative and the catalyst that will ultimately lead to all these characters intersecting.

Tangerine smartly showcases two actual transgendered women playing transgendered characters with both performers contributing considerably to the scripted elements. Baker and his co-writer Chris Bergoch also spent several weeks with real transgendered prostitutes to develop the screenplay.

Certainly not for effete sensibilities, the film features plenty of raw moments and piquant dialogue. For example, Alexandra dissuades her friend on the topic of Chester’s desirability: “His breath smells like he’s been eating ass for days. I mean when I walk into his room it shouldn’t always smell like ‘homeless’ And those socks! Those socks are so black. That’s not a pimp! What do you see in him? Why are you looking for him?”

Another of the film's attributes is that it was entirely shot on a pair of Apple iPhone 5s fitted with newly available anamorphic adapters. The congruence of style and narrative mesh perfectly, producing vivid and pictorially sophisticated results out of sparse technologies. Add real L.A. locations to the mix and Tangerine indeed exudes a rank kitchen sink authenticity.

To contemporary eyes -- growing up watching camera-phone shot videos on YouTube instead of traditional television and film -- the prospect of an entire movie shot with iPhones might seem utterly conventional. But cinematographer Radium Cheung uses the inherent restrictions of the technology, particularly its short focal length lens, to produce inventive and pictorially strident effects.

While it has a verité feel, Tangerine is no dogme film, and is worth seeing on the merits of its camera-work and editing alone. Fluidly arcing tracking shots, crisply cut to the intermittent kick drums and deep baseline of trap music, endows the film with an energy sometimes reaching the kineticism of the Neveldine/Taylor Crank films.

Here though, Baker and Cheung develop something approaching a distinctive iPhone aesthetic. By capitalizing on the fixed wide-angle perspective of the camera and its robust depth of field, they produce classically looming compositions. A face or part of a head often anchors the foreground part of the frame. The distortions created by the wide-angle lens are used to great comic effect.

Gags and events are played out across different planes, through a creative use of deep space. In one scene, Alexandra diverges from Sin-dee to quickly turn a trick for extra cash. Failing to “get-off”, her john reneges on the payment. She charges into him as they both exit off-screen right on the humorous line “You forgot, I got a dick too!”

We then smash into a long-scale shot of Sin-dee interrogating a homeless man about the whereabouts of “Dinah, or Delilah or Dana or whomever.”

The following shot introduces a pair of cops casually minding a corner, then cuts to the camera positioned inside the car, and the windshield clearly framing Alexandra and her john, entangled and still struggling as they slowly drift into view. The film’s use of rhythmic cutting, off-screen and deep space compositions, as well as aperture framing, showcases reliably traditional film craft. The result is a vividly staged, unabashedly humorous and genuinely suspenseful scene.

There’s a visual brilliance on display when the film renders a cab driver giving head to a tranny offscreen, while the cab itself passes through a car wash: the viscous suds, the cloth ribbons that lap away at the wet foam on the windshield, and the jet-stream of water are a clever way to visually and viscerally displace the sexual act occurring just out of our view.

Sin-dee finally locates her quarry in a room chock full of motley figures engaged in all manner of fleshly shenanigans. Sin-dee bursts in and abducts Dinah, proceeding to drag her through what feels like half the city.

The anamorphic format is used throughout for ensemble staging and deep space compositions. Since so much of the performances entails “performing” one’s gender through pose, vocal accent and timbre, and the overall comportment and attitude of one’s body, the film frequently uses long-scale staging of figures to skilled effect.

Tangerine isn’t simply out to shock bourgeois sensibilities with a graphic depiction of tranny prostitutes and the often “straight” men lining up for their services. In fact, the highpoint of the film, Alexandra’s performance at a nightclub, evokes genuine pathos and charm. In an adjacent scene, Sin-dee and Dinah, locked together in a bathroom, share a crack pipe while Sin-dee tenderly applies make-up to her rival’s face.

The latter half of the film suffers from a predictably melodramatic climax where all the characters intersect. These scenes feel staged, like Funny or Die vids, leaving the film’s final attempts to evoke pathos less convincing. And it’s uncertain whether all of this is staged for slapstick or satire. Some audiences may end up bored and chafed as hints of the film’s artifice are revealed.

What’s refreshing about Tangerine, though, is that there’s no sense these characters are on a path to redemption. Neither does the film celebrate their right to a life lived with defiant self-expression. And it’s this neorealist impulse, moments where the characters are allowed to inhabit and interact, borne through solid cinematic craft that makes Tangerine a film that's very much worth seeing.

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

Tangerine is playing theatrically via VSC/Magnolia. In Canada, it can be seen at the Carlton Cinema in Toronto and the VanCity Theatre in Vancouver with other playdates to follow. It can also be seen at the Fantasia International Film Festival 2015 in Montreal.