The Witches (2020)- I’ve never read the Roald Dahl and I saw the 1990 adaptation ages ago and can’t remember much of it. The witch designs (super gnarly) are the only images I recognize. That said, The Witches is the story of a young boy and his grandmother duke it out with a coven of witches who are having a convention at a hotel to organize their plan to turn every child into a mouse.
Things you learn: witches hate children more than anything. kids smell like poop to witches, witches have 3 fingers, no toes, and are bald, and Robert Zemeckis turns to CG for everything.
This movie is obviously for children so it’s horror light. There’s a lot of cute stuff, the main boy (who is never given a name) is especially good. He works well with the terrific Octavia Spencer, their family bond is a believable one. The scary images for young kids all come from Anne Hathaway as the Head Witch. She chews up the scenery with glee and when she goes full witch. She’s often front and center of the frame, aggressively talking to the camera with her voice digitally altered for an extra sinister layer. All of her augements are CG special effects, with pointy teeth, a gigantic mouth, and stretchy limbs. That will most likely freak out young children. The rest, nothing there (unless you have a phobia of rats/mice).
The story is very simple. Once it gets to the hotel I think the movie loses some of its interest and a lot is left unexplored. My big gripe is that it’s the Anne Hathaway show. Sure, she’s the boss as the head witch, but the thirty or so other witches that are in the movie, don’t do anything. Dialog for any of the other witches is nearly non-existant. There is a great scene in a grocery store in the first act that looks like it’s going to set up that witch as an important part but she’s relegated to the background after that. You never get to see any personality from any other witch…they don’t do anything.
There is wall to wall CG in this movie. I wouldn’t expect animatronic talking mice for the hero characters in this day and age but more than half the movie takes on a digital sheen. The animation is always fantastic on these SFX but the lighting constantly looks wrong so it sticks out. There’s one part where the hero mice run down the hallway and the camera follows right behind them…turning everything into obvious CG. I think it would have been better to just move the camera around a real set and put the digital artists onto making three CG characters traversing this obstacle course look fantastic. I don’t think there’s anything to gain visually with flying around an obvious CG set that feels disconnected from everything before it.
Obviously this isn’t aimed at me so I’m digging deeper into it than anyone really needs to. It’s a simple morality take and it’s all rather dull, which is the biggest sin. I get a room full of witches and nothing to really show for it.
The Lighthouse– A powerhouse of acting with stars William Defoe and Robert Pattinson combined with visionary direction and cinema production techniques. I can’t think of a movie that is like this one.
The idea is simple but the execution is complex. Set in New England sometime around 1890, Ephrim (Pattinson) gets dropped off to work as Tom’s (Dafoe) new lighthouse assistant for a month. Tom is a veteran at his job throws his seniority around at every turn. He makes Ephraim do all of the never-ending physical labor. It’s very hard work, the weather is terrible, they are isolated from every human being on the planet, Tom is a jerk. All of this builds the madness in both men.
This movie isn’t really a horror movie, but it is disturbing. Shot in black and white, with a narrow aspect ratio (the film is almost a square), this movie looks like it could have come out in the 1950s. I think the best way to describe it is if Orson Welles made an adaptation of an Edgar Allen Poe story. It didn’t take long for me to wonder what was real and what wasn’t. You’re with Ephraim most of the time and everything he goes through is miserable so it’s easy to relate and sympathize with him. The same awful monotonous physical labor in an environment that looks like you can never be simultaneously warm and dry. Tom can be an insufferable man who rambles and condescends like he gets paid to do it. It’s impossible to tell how much time is passing and Ephrim witnesses Tom doing weird things at the top of the lighthouse. That damn seagull! The constant foghorn! The crappy food! Surreal and Lovecraftian things start happening to Ephraim. And why the hell won’t Tom let him up the final staircase to where the lightbulb is?
So yeah, this get weird and that makes you question everything. Why is Ephraim here? Is Tom right, is he running from something? What happened to Tom’s last assistant? Is Tom crazy? Is Ephraim going crazy because of Tom? Is anything Tom saying true? It’s almost like a race to see who cracks first.
The Lighthouse lives and dies on its actors. No matter how striking it looks (you have to see it, it’s hard to describe), if the actors aren’t good enough, none of it would be believable and the movie wouldn’t work. Dafoe and Pattinson commit 100% to their roles and it’s remarkable to watch. Their relationship constantly morphs and mutates. Mixed with the misery, there’s actually a lot of humor around it. Ephraim’s hardships stack up like a Three Stooges episode. He lugs a gigantic oil canister to the top of the lighthouse only for Tom to be up there waiting with a handheld oil can. ‘Why did you do that? Just use this, it’s way easier. Now take that backbreaking thing back down, dummy.’ He goes to empty the chamber pots and the mess flies back into his face. He s screams and the film cuts right away to him doing another chore. Pattinson makes this madness feel so real. He honestly wants to be a good and hard worker, respecting Tom’s authority and expertise. But a man has his limits! You can see his mind and spirit crack just by looking at his eyes from scene to scene.
Once time has slipped away and the storms get more frequent (or does it just never go away because of that damn seagull?) the two men drink like there is no tomorrow. It’s the way they bond and really the only other thing they can do for fun. This leads to dancing euphoria and fights, with one going so hilariously far that Tom gets deeply offended at Ephriam for saying he doesn’t like his cooking. ‘What about my lobster? I know you liked the lobster, don’t lie!’
Running an hour and 45 minutes long, I feel like that’s a little too much. Things do get repetitive and it feels like the main points are made soon enough to get to the “how the hell is this going to shake out” ending a little sooner. 6-8 minutes shorter, maybe? I think that’s my only complaint. This is a movie to study with repeat viewings. There are some brilliant shots in this movie and the whole production deserves a deep dive documentary to explain how it was made. There is seriously no other movie out there that looks and operates in multiple genres like The Lighthouse does. It’s not for everyone but this could flip on a few light switches in your head.
Tremors: Shrieker Island– This is the seventh movie in the series and I’ll admit they are guilty pleasures for me. The first is a classic, one of my favorite horror movies. The direct to video sequels range from good to…okay that exists. Each movie tries to bring a new element to the Graboid threat and a change of location for the monsters to rampage around is the easiest change to try and make a sequel stand out.
It’s off to the tropics for Shrieker Island where a wealthy man has bred and genetically modified Graboids for wealthy people to hunt. He puts them on an isolated island, positive he’s got everything under control. When you give a super predator even greater and unknown abilities, you can see where the conflict comes. A scientific team that is doing research on a nearby island notices the problem first and they call in series staple Burt Gummer to help stop the growing catastrophe.
I like the concept for Shrieker Island and it checks all the boxes for a movie like this. It’s not too serious, it’s got a catalog of fun characters and extras who are there to be eaten. This is director Don Michael Paul’s third Tremors movie so he knows the territory well (he’s also co-writer). There are some really nice set pieces and action shots throughout.
Obviously direct to video means a low budget. So that means you can’t do everything you want. When you do see a Graboid or a Shrieker, they look good. The new designs make sense and they look cool and menacing. The animation is generally great and depending on the lighting, the CG looks convincing. They are all CG though, which is very disappointing. And all sorts of stuff is done to cut corners to save on monster budget in favor of explosions. You never see someone get eaten. The first few movies do a way better job of this. Shriekers just tackle people from off-camera and out of frame. Graboids jump out of the ground in slow motion (there are Zach Snyder levels of slo-mo in this, really overdone) and you never see a Graboid pop it’s head out of the ground and send it’s tentacles out to grab someone. That’s the coolest part of these monsters and here, it’s some CG coming out of the water (at least it’s one of the better effects in the movie). The tunneling effect is all wrong too. It’s massive explosions of dirt that never look appropriate. I know they are supposed to be much bigger creatures but it doesn’t make sense.
Two massive faux pas: A dead Graboid is found because it has given birth. This act was introduced way back in Tremors 2: Aftershocks. They built a massive section of the worm to show how “something came out of it!” It looks gross, scary, and cool! I’m pretty sure the Graboid carcass in this movie is a pile of dirt with three sections dug out with a shovel and spray painted orange and yellow. It looks awful. If you didn’t see any of the previous movies, you’d never know what that was supposed to be. It looks so bad I couldn’t believe the characters explaining it to the audience that they knew what it was. Second, a Graboid attacks a bunker (the first Tremors!) and you never see it break through the wall! A massive explosion goes off (seriously, they must have spent a fortune on the explosions) and everyone goes, cool it’s dead. Are you sure it was even in there to get blown up? There’s no payoff. The guts of the Graboids are all wrong too! It’s well established that it’s massive chunks of orange, slimy chicken cutlet like flesh and sticky stuff, not pureed watermelon!
The devil is in the details people! Despite the annoyances, Jon Heder is in this and I will always love Michael Gross as Burt Gummer. This movie also ends with a massive change for fans so it’s a consequential movie in the series.
Apostle– Director Gareth Evans is best known for his action movies. He also directed one of the segments in V/H/S 2 so that set him up well for this horror movie about a cult. To be fair he’s never shied away from blood so he didn’t need a warm-up for where this movie goes.
After Steven’s sister is kidnapped, he tracks her down to an island where an isolated cult calls home. He poses as a potential new member of their religion, which lets him stay on the island so he can find her. The community isn’t doing well. There is a serious food shortage because the ground has gone fallow and the livestock isn’t breeding. When they do, the babies are extremely sick. The leadership of the cult also believes that Steven’s sister is a spy from the mainland and that she came with an accomplice. Once hearing what they think of his sister, Steven knows they are extra nuts, she didn’t come here on her own so where did this story come from? This puts pressure on his rescue mission, they are already suspicious and on the lookout for someone acting odd so he needs to be extra careful. With the leadership of the cult on edge, Steven unearths secrets and the community starts to unravel.
This is a wild movie! Set in Whales in 1905, the scenery and motifs are all well done and believable. The community is convincingly real as the rules and hierarchy are quickly established and you get a good sense of the layout of the land with Steven’s exploration. The strongest element of the movie is Steven being an infiltrator. This immediately gives tension to the movie that never lets up. We quickly see that the rule of law in the community is brutal and swift. Judgment comes from two men of authority who are in a power struggle…forget being an outsider, no one is safe here.
The cast is great with Michael Sheen, Lucy Boynton, Dan Stevens, and Mark Lewis Jones doing most of the heavy lifting. Writing is well done too, it’s convincing early 20th century dialog. There are flare ups of cliches and a couple goofy lines but nothing that I found terribly distracting. I didn’t see the supernatural aspect coming and I think that’s the weakest part of the movie. Not too much is explained and that leads into a odd ending that doesn’t work as well as I’d like.
The whole production is outstanding, with all of the money clearly on the screen. No corners were cut here. Evans is a fantastic director, he knows how to set a scene, use all of a stage, and few know how to handle action better than he does. The practical make-up effects are terrific. Once the mayhem starts, things do not de-escalate. This movie is not for the squeamish.
I’ve had Apostle on my Netflix queue since it came out in 2018. It took me too long to get to it, but better late than never. It’s one of the better movies Netflix has picked up, especially in this genre.
His House– This movie popped up on Netflix in time for the Halloween season out of nowhere and immediately caught traction with audiences. A brilliant concept with fantastic execution, His House is one of my favorites of the year.
Bol and Rial are a refugee couple from South Sudan. They’ve made it to England and after a few months in a halfway house, the government allows them to stay. The two are moved into a run-down home and are given strict rules. Basically, “We’re watching you…behave or you are gone.” Bol and Rial are traumatized not just from the violence they were forced to flee from. Their daughter didn’t survive the journey with them.
Using a haunted house as an allegory for survivor’s guilt, His House is a deep dive into a character study. As Bol and Rial struggle to fit in, they process their trauma differently. Rial is in denial about their daughter and feels trapped and isolated in this foreign place. Bol wants to do everything he can to move on. He’s mourned enough and wants to put the trauma in the past. If they can start a new life in England, what they went through won’t be a pointless tragedy. His guilt turns on him though, making tormenting (and tormented) ghosts appear in their new home.
I’ll leave the description at that, spoiling anything more will take a lot of the power away. His House is a smart and contemporary take on haunted houses. It explores what goes on in society, both private and public. There are forces inside and out of your home and when you don’t feel safe in your own home, are you ever safe? For Bol and Rial, wherever they go, they aren’t wanted. That is scary.
The movie has very few locations which keeps the focus tight and the pace moving. All the money was put into the haunting scenes which are all awesome. Taught, disturbing, and spooky as you can get. The SFX are really well done, this entire movie is really impressive (the editing is a standout). I recognize two of the actors, Matt Smith (a bit part) and Rial is played by Wunmi Mosaku who I just watched as Ruby in Lovecraft Country on HBO. Wunmi is fantastic as is Sope Dirisu as Bol.
His House is director Remi Weekes’ first big project (he wrote it too) and if this any indication, he has a hell of a career in front of him. I’ll be on the lookout for what he does next.
And thus ends Halloween 2020!