Head Count takes a fairly simple premise and manages to elevate it into something far greater than its limited production budget would seemingly allow. [Read more…]
[Review] An Unsettling Premise Can’t Save ‘The Cleaning Lady’ From A Weak Script
There’s an uncomfortable tension at work in The Cleaning Lady, Jon Knautz’s feature length adaptation of his short of the same name. It’s in the key art for the film (a woman wears a domestic maid’s uniform, bloody gloves and an uncanny-looking mask) and it’s baked into the premise, about the obsessive relationship that develops between Alice (Alexis Kendra, who also co-wrote the script), a successful, albeit flawed aesthetician and her disfigured cleaning woman, Shelly (Rachel Alig).
The Cleaning Lady is first and foremost a stalker film. Alice hires Shelly on the down low to privately clean her apartment, thereby allowing the meek, mysterious woman access to her home. Considering that the film opens with Shelly brewing a rat smoothie and feeding it to a chained woman in an abandoned shipping container, it’s immediately clear that Alice is making a mistake. And just in case it wasn’t obvious, Knautz includes a horror musical cue when Alice first stumbles upon Shelly cleaning her clogged shower drain.
Alice and Shelly are contrasted using straightforward visual cues: Alice is blonde and her apartment is bathed in a sunny yellow colour, whereas Shelly’s dark hair continually hangs in her face and her home is located off the beaten path in the woods. Alice is also pert and chipper, good at casual small talk and maintaining her physique with regular yoga classes. Shelly is barely verbal, going about her business quietly with her head down. It’s only when Alice hires and then befriends Shelly that the latter begins to open up; alas, it simultaneously initiates her unhealthy obsession with Alice’s seemingly perfect life.
The fact that Alice’s “perfection” is a facade isn’t evident to Shelly, who idolizes her new employer. The reality is that Alice is a slave to her vices, which range from small – her inability to quit smoking – to large – carrying on an affair with a married man, Michael (Stelio Savante). The discovery that Alice isn’t living up to Shelly’s expectations push the cleaning woman over the edge and, naturally, violence follows.
Artificiality as a “cover up” is an obvious, but effective metaphor for both Alice and Shelly. Alice only looks put together because she has the proper make-up, clothes and body, whereas Shelly’s refusal to play dress up for the world – opting for ball caps, no make-up and baggy clothes – immediately distinguish her as an outsider.
And therein lies the problem. Anything interesting that The Cleaning Lady has to say about living fake lives, dressing to pass, or using a make-over as cover-up (literally and figuratively) is undone by a script that favours exploitation and titillation over genuine human emotion.
Not unlike Blumhouse’s recent thriller Ma, The Cleaning Lady wants to explore how childhood trauma contributes to the development of adult victimizers. In this case, sporadic flashbacks introduce a young Shelly (Mykayla Sohn), a minor being sexually exploited by her mother, pimped out to random men in exchange for money. These glimpses into the past have the same sweaty, grimy sheen as the flashbacks in Black Xmas, and young Shelly’s infantile interest in dolls is nicely juxtaposed by the decrepitness of the rest of the house and the leering, greasy pedophiles. It’s all suitably icky.
It’s also on-the-nose obvious; the flashbacks serve as a narrative shorthand to “explain” adult Shelly’s psychosis. But, while it is not uncommon in horror to assign a childhood trauma to villains, here it is both too fleeting and too simplistic. The Cleaning Lady lacks finesse, resulting in a series of clunky flashbacks that trade in manipulative exploitation and seemingly exist to pay-off the film’s obvious conclusion.
Despite the clumsy use of overly simplistic pop psychology to explain Shelly’s motivation, The Cleaning Lady does have a number of elements worth recommending. The performances by both lead actresses are solid and Knautz makes good use of a few key locations to maintain a claustrophobic feel as Shelly slowly collapses the boundaries between her and her prey. There are several set pieces that really connect, the creepiest of which is a late night sojourn by Shelly into Alice’s bedroom to make a latex mask of Alice’s “perfect” visage. It’s deeply unsettling, and makes for a fascinating mirroring effect when the prosthetic becomes Shelly’s trademark mask.
Speaking of make-up, the effects are a bit of a mixed bag: for every effect that works (Shelly’s burns), there’s another that doesn’t quite hit the mark (a torture scene involving acid is particularly unconvincing). This is forgivable, however, considering that budget undoubtedly played a factor.
Unfortunately the film is undone by its undercooked script. In addition to the explanation for Shelly’s mental state, there’s an abrupt narrative shift in the last act that derails the film’s focus by thrusting a heretofore peripheral character into the spotlight. It simply does not work and the poorly executed creative decision comes off as a cheap (and predictable) attempt to inject tension (and increase the body count), but actually just muddles the narrative at a time when it should be crescendoing. It’s an unfortunate development that negatively impacts the film’s ending and the film would have been better off ironing it out of the script early on.
The Bottom Line: The Cleaning Lady has strong lead performances, a creepy premise and a few unsettling set pieces, but it is undone by poor script decisions, particularly the cheap reliance on exploitative flashbacks. 2.5/5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l92FHpCtysU
[Review] ‘Brightburn’ Brings the Gore to Superhero Horror
Director David Yarovesky’s gory horror film finds an infertile Kansas couple raising a burgeoning villain with super powers in a horrific treatment that draws influence from Superman’s origin story. [Read more…]
4 Reasons To Check Out ‘Piercing’, A Psychological Battle Of Wills
I’m behind the 8 Ball with other responsibilities, but I still wanted to give a shout out to Piercing, which is currently out on VOD and available on DVD/Blu March 12.
Logline: A man, Reed (Christopher Abbott) kisses his wife and baby goodbye and seemingly heads away on business, with a plan to check into a hotel, call an escort service, and kill an unsuspecting sex worker, Jackie (Mia Wasikowska).
Here are four quick reasons why the film should be on your radar:
1) Star Mia Wasikowska
Pretty much any film starring Wasikowska is worth checking out, but her genre fare is particularly worthy (Stoker is a personal favourite and Rogue is a great little creature feature/aquatic horror film). Here she’s playing Jackie, a call girl who is far more dangerous and damaged than she looks. Plus: while it’s notoriously difficult to rock a bob cut, Wasikowska is surprisingly adept at pulling it off!
Co-star Abbott is fine, though his character Reed is deliberately understated and more reserved, especially in comparison to Jackie, who is allowed to embody a full range of emotions. Still, the pair make for a believable match and neither are hard on the eyes.
2) The Writer & Director
Piercing is based on a novel by Ryû Murakami, the novelist who wrote Audition – which should get you hyped for Piercing in a BIG way. The film is adapted by Nicolas Pesce, the man behind the gruesome festival fave The Eyes of My Mother which shocked audiences with its provocative B/W exploration of taboo subjects.
3) The Visual Aesthetic
Pesce, along with production designer Alan Lampert, creates a gorgeous tactile world of rich, evocative colours and anonymous spaces (generic hotel rooms, abandoned hallways, uniform city skylines and a large, mostly empty apartment). Whitney Anne Adams’ costumes tie into the mise-en-scene, particularly Jackie’s fluffy fur coat which makes an immediate impression when she arrives at Reed’s cramped hotel room, as does the strategic use of split screens during key sequences to tie the film’s anti-heroes together in different locales.
4) The Violence
Several reviewers have described Piercing as an American film informed by Giallo aesthetics, with makes sense given its propensity to favour art over plot and its tendency to focus on Wasikowska and Abbott’s eyes. When violence does occasionally erupt, however, it is brutal and efficient; Pesce knows how to shoot violence in a visceral fashion which helps make those rare moments even more impactful.
Piercing is ultimately more of a psychological battle of wills between two disturbed partners who may just be perfect foes/accomplices for each other. Patient viewers will find the film an intriguing slow burn, though audiences seeking insight into character pathology or gore hounds looking for ultraviolence will undoubtedly find Piercing too slow paced and scattershot for their liking. Still, strong performances and a keen visual aesthetic make Piercing a solid recommend.
3/5
[Review] Rush IFC Midnight’s ‘Pledge’…If You Dare
There’s plenty of horror to be wrung out of the idea that something is “too good to be true.” In director Daniel Robbins’ latest film, Pledge, the phrase is put to the test when a trio of College freshmen discover a social club whose seemingly perfect facade proves to be a front for something far more malicious and sadistic. [Read more…]
[BitS Review] SUPERGRID Is An Ambitious, Albeit Familiar, Dystopian Action Flick
Opening this year’s Blood in the Snow film festival is director Lowell Dean’s Supergrid, a loving homage to dystopian road movies like George Miller’s Mad Max series:
SuperGrid is set in a near future where mining conglomerates have turned Canada into a wasteland. Two brothers must travel the same road that claimed their sister’s life in their quest to deliver mysterious cargo. En route they must contend with road pirates, rebel gangs, and each other.
Quick Review:
You know what you’re signing up for when you buy a ticket to SuperGrid. This is a film that dutifully checks all of the action movie checkboxes:
- Heroes whose gruff exteriors mask soft emotional interiors
- A fraught family dynamic based in tragedy
- A bitter ex who secretly (or not so secretly) still loves the hero
- A cruel totalitarian dictator who is only interested in his own power base
- A henchman (or in this case hench woman) who does all of the heavy lifting in the action sequences
- A variety of explosive/violent set pieces, varying from heists to shoot-outs while driving
- A communal uprising of the people to combat the despot
The fact that T.R. McCauley and Justin Ludwig’s script hews so closely to conventional tropes of the genre could be seen as disappointing, but Canadian action films remain a rarity so this Saskatchewan-shot production feels both ambitious and unique. Considering the minuscule $1.2M budget, Dean delivers some impressive visuals, particularly in regard to the futuristic dystopian world-building.
The actors are well-cast, particularly leads Leo Fafard (as older brother Jesse) and Marshall Williams (as impetuous younger brother Deke). Tough girl North (Natalie Krill) and Owl (Daniel Maslany, brother of Orphan Black star Tatiana) steal the show as Overwatch agents, while Fei Ren is enjoyably over the top (albeit a little broad) as hissable leather-clad hench woman, Guan Yin.
The Bottom Line: SuperGrid fails to offer anything new to the dystopian road movie subgenre, but it handles the expected tropes in a confident and enjoyable fashion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5XHdmQuSkk
SuperGrid screens Thursday, Nov 22 at 9:30pm at The Royal. The film opens in theatres Dec 14.