BEFORE: Cutting down my annual line-up for films for Shocktober to just 22 films has turned out to be the right move. I'm looking at losing two days to New York Comic-Con this week, and then four days later in the month to my new job - so if I lay the new movie schedule over the calendar and block out the days I'm busy, I can JUST about make it. I could theoretically still watch a movie on those days, but I need to also think about my sleeping schedule, which is bad enough already without trying to do too much. Before the pandemic, I used to be able to oversleep, and with everything that's gone on, I seem to have lost that ability. I'm slowly turning into one of those old people who gets up early and gets stuff done, and I don't like that, not at all. I didn't use to worry so much about everything, either, from what I recall. If I didn't work so many hours in a week, who cares, it's the part-time gig life for me, right? Now if I don't have two part-time jobs, and a crammed schedule, then I feel like I'm not doing enough and my bank account's going to dry up in two months. These are the modern-day fears, in addition to all the pandemic concerns over health, the political nightmares we've all lived through, and watching the planet slowly change and die under our feet. Is it any wonder I can't sleep more than six hours a night? Who needs horror movies when we have the news?
Mia Goth carries over from "Marrowbone".
THE PLOT: An ambitious young executive is sent to retrieve his company's CEO from an idyllic but mysterious "wellness center" at a remote location in the Swiss Alps, but soon suspects that the spa's treatments are not what they seem.
AFTER: Just two films after "The New Mutants", we're back at another creepy medical facility - this one's a spa/wellness center located near the Swiss alps, one that caters to older people who happen to be rich corporate executives, and there's something inherently OFF about it, right from the get-go. But the question then becomes, are appearances deceiving, could this really be just a nice, relaxing place for wealthy CEO's to spend time, relax and regenerate, or is there something more sinister going on. Umm, yeah, it's a horror movie, so guess what?
Young Lockhart is rising up through the ranks at his corporate job, he just got a corner office after some poor executive suffered a heart attack (gee, if only there were a nice European spa he could have gone to...) and he's done some great work on the Reynolds account. Only he didn't, he pulled some kind of corporate shady deal to land the Reynolds account, or something, and the executive board is on to him. They won't turn him over to the SEC, though, if he'll just travel to the mysterious creepy spa near the Swiss Alps to retrieve the company's CEO, who's apparently enjoying the place so much that he never wants to leave. But since there's an important merger coming up, big financial corporate dealings being what they are, the board needs him back in NYC ASAP. It's an easy mission, a midnight run, what could possibly go wrong? Umm, yeah, it's a horror movie, so guess what?
Lockhart arrives at the spa and asks to see the missing CEO. Bad news, it's 3:10 pm and visiting hours inconveniently end at 3 pm. So no dice. Lockhart persists, he meets with the manager of the facility, who says the CEO is having a "treatment" and won't be available until 7 pm. OK, Lockhart can swing back at 7 pm, pick up the CEO, get him to the airport for the red-eye back to NYC, and everything will be fine, problem solved. But wait, remember, it's a horror movie. Absolutely nothing's going to be easy here.
I've encountered this level of bureaucracy before, and I've sort of built my career in film production by learning how to navigate around this. Just yesterday we had to pick up two badges at New York Comic-Con, which usually is a simple procedure - my name's been on my boss's account as the point of contact for a decade now, so I usually just show up and get our badges handed to me. (They always threaten that the badges will be name-specific, which would not enable us to swap them among our booth-staff, but they never quite follow through on this threat.). This time my convention padawan and I had to find the proof-of-vaccination booth outside just to get wristbands, then with the wristbands we could get inside the Javits to get our badges, only she was pulling a wheeled cart with our merch in it, so she couldn't come inside with the cart. They wouldn't let me pick up two badges, because I was only one person, despite being the contact person on the account. After a while, this becomes like that puzzle where you have to get the fox, the chicken and the bag of corn across the river in the boat, but you can only take two items with you on each trip. OK, so I got my badge, we dropped off the merch and the supplies at our table, then went BACK to the badge counter, and now since we were two people we could pick up the second badge. I'm jumping through just as many hoops right now trying to qualify a short film for the Oscars, and navigating Comic-Con rules AND A.M.P.A.S. rules at the same time is double-fun, let me tell you. But this is what I do.
The other thing that leaps to mind here, is that this spa is in Switzerland, which is very close to Germany. Germans may even be running the place, and Germans are known for being notoriously rigid and stubborn when it comes to rules. I should know, I had a strict German grandmother who helped raise me, and I had to learn my way around all of HER rules and do things HER way, from coming home right after school to mowing the lawn on a regular basis. I've tried very hard over the years to recover from this, but no doubt it all contributed to my OCD and my own rigid ways of doing things, patterns of behavior under which I feel comfortable just because they're familiar, but left to chart my own course, it's easy to feel lost and adrift.
About 15 years ago, my wife and I visited this German lodge up in the Catskills, we'd been visiting the Poconos on and off for several years (and this was a few years before discovering the joys of Atlantic City) but this Mountain Brauhaus seemed like a fun change of pace. I think two meals each day were included in the cost of staying there, which I was fine with, but my wife found the selection a bit underwhelming. For lunch one day the menu had three items on it, and if you didn't like those items, there was a fourth option, which was to not eat. One day we decided to drive into town, check out a local restaurant with a larger menu, and when we got back the proprietors or the resort were very curious over why we didn't show up for lunch. When we said we wanted to eat one meal somewhere else, they asked, "Why?" Umm, maybe because your menu only has three items on it? To me, it was comforting and familiar, like being back at my German grandmother's house, with someone tracking my whereabouts after school. But you know what, older German women can track my movements as long as they cook me a lot of delicious German food, it seems like a fair trade to me. And on our last night at the resort, just before they shut down for the season, there was a huge Oktoberfest-style feast, served family style, so it was all-you-can-eat, my favorite type of meal.
Back at the Swiss spa, I don't know what kind of food they're serving on the menu, but the guests seem really into it. They're also really into the healthy properties of the spa's water, and they're encouraged to drink those recommended eight glasses a day, only for some reason this just seems to make everybody thirstier. Meanwhile, Lockhart was in a terrible car accident on his way down the mountain, so now he's got a broken leg and he's a resident in the medical wing until further notice. Now he's not going to make his deadline to get that CEO back to New York, but at least he's got lots of time to snoop around and figure out what's really going on here. Who's the mysterious girl who doesn't seem to understand how life works outside the spa? Why doesn't Pembroke, the CEO, want to leave the spa? What's in all the little blue vials full of "vitamins"? And why can't European people do crossword puzzles correctly?
It's all connected somehow to the story of some baron from 200 years ago, who wanted to keep his bloodline pure by marrying his own sister. Ah, now we're really getting into the kinky side of German people, they're into all that weird fetish stuff, right? Plus, racial purity was kind of their brand back in the day, so this is all starting to make some strange kind of sense. But what's the connection between the past and the present? Who rebuilt the spa after the peasants revolted and burned it down? And how does a spa on top of a MOUNTAIN have access to an underground aquifer? This last one is a huge NITPICK POINT, because water tends to flow downhill, you see, so I think if you look at your various spas across the world that have access to natural springs, I'm guessing most of them are at sea level, or close to it. I'm not an expert on this sort of thing, but I think a spa on a mountain comprises some kind of inherent contradiction.
Enough about the plot, I don't want to give any spoilers away, just wanted to raise the questions - because when the answers finally come, you'll have to decide for yourself if they're at all believable. But while we're on the topic of fetishes, this movie tends to take advantage of the phobias as well - whether you've got a fear of medical procedures, or dentistry, or confined spaces (plus others I won't name here) you'll probably find something here that will make you squirm in your seat, and isn't that what Shock-tober is supposed to be about, at the end of the day? This is one giant stress-dream, from the moment Lockhart sets foot in the spa to the end of the film. And here I thought that the spa was supposed to ALLEVIATE stress, only again, horror movie, so that's just not gonna happen.
There's still the looming possibility that none of this is real - not just because it's a movie but also maybe Lockhart's lost his grip on reality, or having psychotic episodes, or the whole thing is a fever dream, or maybe he died in that car accident and he's in purgatory or hell. That's the basic checklist, I suppose, when a film shows us things that are just a little too far-fetched to be believable. If you take this one at face value, though, it's patently ridiculous, but so are a lot of other horror movies. Maybe you'll find it ridiculous in a good way, I can't be sure - but you may also be reminded of that quote from "South Park" - "Dude, what the f*ck is wrong with German people?"
There's an obvious allegory here to our current pandemic situation, even if this film was released in 2017, three years before any COVID-19 lockdowns. The majority of the guests at the spa are completely sold on the healing properties of the spa's water, despite the evidence all around them that they're not getting better, in fact their conditions are getting worse. But they've all been brainwashed, to some extent - does this feel familiar to anyone else? Ignoring the medical data, believing in a cure just because some charismatic person TELLS them that this cure will work, and refusing to listen to any evidence to the contrary. This spa water might as well be Ivermectin, or hydroxychloroquine, or hydrogen peroxide inhaled via nebulizer. There's a list on Wikipedia of unproven methods to cure or prevent COVID-19, which also includes ultraviolet rays, drinking bleach, cannabis, cocaine, colloidal silver, herbal drinks and many other products being hyped online. Meanwhile, we've got a 99% safe and effective vaccine readily available, and there's still a notable percentage of Americans who refuse to take it.
You have to wonder (come on, don't you?) what some people on certain news channels hope to GAIN from hyping these false cures, when they themselves have received the vaccine. I'm left to conclude that they secretly want other people to NOT get the vaccine and die, which leaves more resources, jobs and money for the vaccinated people. Am I being too cynical, or can I just see past the lies, which not everybody seems willing to do? I'll admit that a TINY percentage of people have had bad reactions and side effects to the vaccine, sure, but compare that to the over 700,000 people in the U.S. and estimated 4.5 million people worldwide who have died from COVID, and ask yourself which group you'd rather be in? The living one or the dead one? OK, now what about your close family members, would you prefer them alive or dead? Because the vast majority of people filling up the hospital beds right now are coming from the unvaccinated group, so take that into consideration. But, if you'd rather place your bets on bleach or horse de-worming drugs, have at it, because I'm done trying to save dumb people. Maybe we've got too many dumb people in the world as it is, and the herd needs to be thinned out some more. But before I go, please, just take a hard look at the people pitching those "miracle cures", I can guarantee they got their COVID vaccine when it became available to them. Why? Because they want to make sure they stay alive long enough to enjoy your money, and you can count on that.
I'll be radio-silent the next couple of days because I'm working at Comic-Con, but I'll be back here on Sunday to start up the last 50 movies of 2021. Halloween and Christmas are a lot closer than you might think!
Also starring Dane DeHaan (last seen in "Tulip Fever"), Jason Isaacs (last seen in "Rio, I Love You"), Harry Groener (last seen in "A Futile and Stupid Gesture"), Celia Imrie (last seen in "Nanny McPhee"), Adrian Schiller (last seen in "A Little Chaos"), Ivo Nandi (last seen in "Bad Boys for Life"), Ashok Mandanna (last seen in "A Passage to India"), Tomas Nortström, David Bishins (last seen in "The Adjustment Bureau"), Carl Lumbly (last seen in "Doctor Sleep"), Lisa Banes (last seen in "Gone Girl"), Godehard Giese, Magnus Krepper (last seen in "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest"), Peter Benedict, Maggie Steed (last seen in "Paddington 2"), Craig Wroe, Tom Flynn, Eric Todd, Jason Babinsky (last seen in "You Don't Know Jack"), Johannes Krisch, Rebecca Street, Bert Tischendorf, Michael Mendl (last seen in "Downfall"), Douglas Hamilton
RATING: 6 out of 10 vintage photographs
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