Us

Year 14, Day 303 - 10/30/22 - Movie #4,274

BEFORE: Well, damn it, because I'm locked into a chain that will get me to the end of the year, and the new "Black Panther" film comes out in 10 days.  With a little more foresight, I might have found a way to end my October chain with tonight's film, take a few days off, then go see "Wakanda Forever" as soon as it opens.  Well, then I'd have no outro for that, in addition to shaking up my chain at essentially the last minute, so I'm not going to do that. I'll just put the new Marvel film on my list and I WILL get to it ASAP in the New Year.  Considering that I caught up on Marvel this year, by watching "Shang-Chi", "The Eternals", "Doctor Strange 2", "Venom 2" and "Spider-Man: No Way Home", and even the "She-Hulk" series, I think I've done pretty well in 2022, no regrets. Tomorrow I'll list all the horror movies I didn't get to - but hey, I'll need some material for next October, too.

Elisabeth Moss carries over from "The Invisible Man". 

THE PLOT: A family's serene beach vacation turns to chaos when their doppelgangers appear and begin to terrorize them. 

AFTER: Well, here's the good news - if your whole family is stuck for Halloween costumes, or decides at the last minute that they all want to do something together, then all you need are some red jumpsuits and long pointy scissors, and you can all just go trick-or-treating as your own doppelganger family.  You just need to mess your hair up, open your eyes real wide and learn how to smile like a crazy person. Problem solved.  

This was the hot horror film of 2019, I think you can see from my choices this year that even if I put a horror film on my list and try to fast-track it, it still can take me two or three years to get to it.  I got very lucky this year and found slots for "Morbius", "Last Night in Soho" and "Hotel Transylvania 4", but the rest have been around for a couple cycles, at least.  And "Tales from the Darkside", how long has THAT one been on my list?  Possibly since the beginning, it's tough to say. But I'd been trying to get to the "Purge" franchise and "The Amityville Horror" for a while, thankfully it's the newer films that allow me to use the older ones as linking material, or perhaps vice versa.  

But if I think back, it was two years after "Get Out" was the hot movie, and literally everyone was waiting to see what Jordan Peele would do next.  The answer turned out to be "Us" and then "Nope", but neither one really struck gold in the way that "Get Out" did - then Peele became the latest filmmaker to fail at trying to revive "The Twilight Zone", and I think we all wished him well, but let it rest already, stop trying to make "The Twilight Zone" happen. It had its day in the 1950's, and a movie in the 1980's, I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that I don't have time for another anthology TV series that I have to watch. I made it through all the Rod Serling episodes when I was a kid, learned a lot about dramatic irony, sure, but I committed them all to memory so that I'd never have to watch them again - because it turns out that when you play everything for shock value, there's not a great desire to watch that movie or TV show again.  Once you learn the "Big Twist", you'll see it coming the second time, and its lost its impact. 

And there is a "Big Twist" here, but it's buried in a very confusing, convoluted plotline - I still saw it coming a mile away, probably because I trained myself as a kid to figure out all those "Twilight Zone" episodes.  Don't get me wrong, there's a great set-up here in "Us", the opening half-hour is 100% solid - it's the last half-hour, the time during which everything is supposed to be revealed and explained, where things just kind of fall apart.  Oh, umm, how about a mid-review SPOILER ALERT here, if you don't want to learn the whole plotline of "Us" then please stop reading now, there's just no way to talk about this film without giving it all away.  Anyway, a family on vacation gets a visit from their creepy doppelgangers, which is a German word that means "I look just like you, and I'm here to replace you."  

The Wilson family is no match for their doppelgangers, who wear those red jumpsuits and carry those long pointy scissors and talk about "the Untethering" in a creepy way.  Actually, only one of them talks, the others are either silent or make creepy growling or bellowing noises.  Creepy, right, and what are they going to do with those scissors?  At the same time, we're shown flashbacks of a little girl at a California beachside amusement park, wandering away from her parents and finding some kind of hall-of-mirrors in a funhouse, as one does at an amusement park.  But within the hall of mirrors she meets her own reflection, that is to say, a little girl who looks and dresses just like her.  Also creepy.  So, umm, what's the connection between the stories?  Is the little girl from the hall of mirrors the grown-up doppelganger, and if so, how did she get a whole doppelganger family that looks just like the real Wilson family?  

Before we get any constructive answers, there's a drawn-out fight where the Wilson family has to defeat their doppelgangers, which isn't easy because they're suburbans, not really the killing type.  Put anybody's back up against the wall, however, and they could be made to defend themselves - and any parent might have it within them to defend their children if needed, so deep down, perhaps we're all killing machines, when push comes to shove.  Would you kill somebody to save your children, or your parents?  Who can say what can happen in the heat of the moment?  Would you kill a home intruder in the middle of the night, to protect your family?  

But then it turns out that what's happening to the Wilsons is happening all over the city, maybe even all over the country.  Crazed people in red jumpsuits are turning up all over the place, and if left unchecked, they're finding their human counterparts, presumably killing them, and then taking their place in a long, protest-like line of doppelgangers, what gives?  A reference early in the film to the failed 1986 public event "Hands Across America" gives another clue to what might be going on here.  The film also opens with the strange fact that there are miles and miles of tunnels under the United States, many of which don't have a known purpose.  

But the big problem here is that even after the big reveal, when you try to put all these little narrative pieces together, it doesn't really make any sense.  It's creepy, sure, but it still has to WORK as a story, and this just doesn't.  If you tell me there's a guy who lives in a shack in the woods and he's killing people with a machete, I can understand that.  If you tell me there's a vampire who lives in a castle and he sleeps in a coffin during the day and turns into a bat at night to drink human blood, it's a big ask, but I can still get behind it.  But then if you tell me that the government somehow cloned everyone and made the clones live in the underground tunnels, where they all constantly mimicked the actions of the citizens living above because they don't have complete souls of their own, and this was some failed program to try to control the population, well, sorry, I'm not coming along on that ride.  This seems even more far-fetched than saying that celebrities and politicians are drinking the blood of frightened babies in the basement of a Washington DC pizzeria. 

How does this even work, anyway, if the government is no longer in control of the project, then who's feeding the clones, who's getting them the jumpsuits, how do they learn English or take showers or get supplies on a regular basis, and why don't more of them come up the stairs or the giant escalator and escape through the amusement park on a regular basis?  And then who decided that completing the Hands Across America project was the ultimate goal, the thing they should be focused on?  If they're all about the Untethering, and replacing their counterparts, why isn't THAT the main goal?  Wouldn't it make sense for them to come up above ground one by one, initiate the take-over gradually, like the Skrulls in "Secret Invasion", rather than do it all at once, thereby revealing their presence to the world and tipping their hand?  

Sure, I get it, mirrors are creepy and amusement parks are creepy, empty beaches are creepy, and rabbits in cages are creepy, but the pieces of the puzzle just aren't coming together for me here.  And twins are creepy for sure.  People who look a bit like you are definitely creepy - if you let them be.  I've got photos of myself encountering my doppelgangers at comic-con - this happened when someone came to my booth who was also wearing a baseball cap and a similar Hawaiian shirt, and at that point what can you do but hug that other person and have your picture taken together?  To me that seems like a much better way of handling things than just killing them outright.

I suppose there's a big metaphor here for the class system in the U.S. - as there's one group of people who get to live above ground, have jobs and houses and cars, while another group of people lives "underground", and doesn't have all of those things.  That's fine, I get the race-based metaphor, but it's somewhat contradicted by depicting an upper middle-class African-American family, so the whole message gets kind of muddled.  Sure, we all expected Jordan Peele to make another horror film connected to the Black experience, but there were scarier alternatives out there - gerrymandering, for example. I can't think of many things more terrifying than a whole group of people losing their voting rights and representation, but I guess that would be a lot harder to translate into a horror-movie plot.  

Also starring Lupita Nyong'o (last heard in "Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker"), Winston Duke (last seen in "Spenser Confidential"), Shahadi Wright Joseph (last heard in "The Lion King" (2019), Evan Alex, Tim Heidecker (last seen in "Brigsby Bear"), Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (last seen in "The Trial of the Chicago 7"), Anna Diop (last seen in "Message from the King"), Cali Sheldon, Noelle Sheldon, Madison Curry, Ashley McKoy, Napiera Groves, Lon Gowan (last seen in "The Call of the Wild"), Alan Frazier, Duke Nicholson, Dustin Ybarra (last seen in "Ted 2"), Nathan Harrington, Kara Hayward (last seen in "Paterson") and the voice of Jordan Peele (last heard in "Toy Story 4")

RATING: 4 out of 10 whacked moles

The Invisible Man (2020)

Year 14, Day 302 - 10/29/22 - Movie #4,273

BEFORE: OK, now I'm officially late, and the prospects for catching up aren't great.  This was always going to be my Saturday film, but since I lost Friday night and I have to work ALL DAY Saturday, then I have to watch this Saturday night, after a 12 hour shift, and (presumably) some kind of nap.  I'm going to be wiped out, I don't know how I'll be able to stay awake.  Hopefully this one will be just scary ENOUGH to hold my attention and make me afraid to close my eyes, that might be the saving grace.  However, there's no way I can post a review until Sunday, so to me, that's late - even if I end up staying awake and watching it "on time", which for me, means late. 

Amali Golden carries over from "Love and Monsters", she's got an uncredited role in today's film, but that's OK, because according to IMDB, she's in here somewhere, as "Annie". 

THE PLOT: When Cecilia's abusive ex takes his own life and leaves her his fortune, she suspects his death was a hoax. As a series of coinciences turns deadly, Cecilia works to prove she is being hunted by someone nobody can see. 

AFTER: OK, so I survived the long Saturday shift, somehow I managed to get to the theater before 6 am and open up, and get it ready for the school's Open House.  As soon as we got all the tables and chairs in place, all of the teachers and volunteers showed up at the same time, and before I knew it, we were swamped with prospective students and parents, there to learn more about the college, I guess for next year?  Damn, it's been so long I kind of forgot how college selection and admissions works.  I guess colleges have to promote themselves to the parents so they can get that sweet, sweet tuition money and use it to pay the hourly wages of the worker drones like me, so, umm, thanks for considering art school, parents!  

I somehow got home before dinnertime, on a weekend night when most adults just want to get out there and party, I saw a lot of people in weird costumes on the subway - well, more than on the average Saturday night in NYC, anyway.  Coming home from the late shifts I can sometimes spot a drag queen or two, that's fairly normal now.  Then I figured I'd watch TV and take a nap, but I didn't - and a couple of bottles of pumpkin ale didn't knock me out, either.  Sometimes beer keeps me up rather than puts me to sleep - so 11 pm rolled around and I'd figure I'd start the movie, thinking I'd probably be asleep after 10 minutes, but I stayed awake!  That's a good sign for a horror movie, remember that "Underwater" kept making me doze off, again and again. 

All week, I've found my films at the intersection of horror and bad relationships, like "Colossal" and "Swallow" both riffed on women's relationships with toxic men, and this one fits right in with those.  (Let's file "Lizzie" and "Love and Monsters" under "It's Complicated", OK?). "The Invisible Man" is about a woman trying to escape from a controlling husband, somebody who's rich and a big tech executive in the optics market (hint, hint) but wants to keep his wife under wraps at his compound, and be in charge of everything she does, says and eats.  This guy could apparently be with any women he wanted, but then when she splits, his obsession goes into overdrive, and then he can't imagine himself with anyone else.  Perhaps no other woman would put up with his controlling ways, and in Cecilia he found the perfect submissive - and of course, he desperately wants back the person he can't have. It all kind of fits, psychologically speaking.  

However, not everyone would go to such extremes to get someone back, like faking their own death after crafting a will with such outrageous terms - Cecilia gets his entire optics fortune, but in monthly increments of six figures over four years, provided that she remains innocent of any criminal wrongdoing. (Now, why would THAT be in the terms of the will, hmmmm...). It seems her late husband is still controlling her, even after his "death", that's the easiest assumption to make, but for God's sake, why does she agree to these terms?  Can't she get her own lawyer, and negotiate a better deal, like how about she gets everything right away and doesn't have to jump through any hoops?  Or she gets to run his company as the majority shareholder?  And to get the money, of course she has to sign the contract, provide her bank account information and her current address, what could POSSIBLY go wrong?  That would only be bad if her husband was only MOSTLY dead, and wanted to stalk her...

I think this is the stupidest part of the film, perhaps, because with his invisibility power, Adrian Griffin can do so many things, he could rob jewelry stores or sneak into bank vaults, or if he's a total perv he could just walk into any women's dressing room or locker room, yet he instead devotes all of his efforts into winning back the ONE woman who is sick of him and can't stand him. Just move on, dude.

Before long, the film turns into a solid creep-fest, because, well, because we know it's called "The Invisible Man", and we know that sooner or later, there's going to be some hijinks caused by somebody we can't see on camera.  I admit I had a bit of an advantage here, because ever since I got my hearing aid, I've been watching films with the captions on, and any notable sound effects are mentioned in the captions for the benefit of the hearing-impaired.  Whatever technology the Invisible Man is using here apparently makes some kind of clicking noise, because whenever he was in the room, I got a heads-up about the clicking from the captions.  That's a big clue that I should be looking for curtains moving, doors appearing to open by themselves, or chair cushions that are indented as if somebody you can't see is sitting on them...

But what's really clever here is the uncertainty, even if Cecilia feels like there's somebody invisible in the room with her, how can she possibly prove it?  What if that noise she hears is just the wind, or the normal creaking noises that any house might make?  Is that bump on the ceiling from an invisible person in the attic, or maybe it's just a squirrel that got inside, or an acorn that fell on the roof?  Never mind that, what if she's going crazy?  Certainly everybody THINKS that when she says that her husband is stalking her from beyond the grave, how do we in the audience really know what's going on in any particular situation?  Is Adrian dead or not?  Is Cecilia crazy or not?  And where is all of this going to end up?  

They kind of keep you guessing here - Adrian's brother just happens to also be his estate lawyer, so maybe he's in on the conspiracy.  Is he evil or, you know, just a lawyer?  He claims that he also hated how controlling his brother was, and so he's a sympathetic figure, for a time.  But maybe he's a little TOO sympathetic, is that all an act?  Cecilia's sister is very helpful when she's trying to get her life back together, but then she starts acting cold to her, what's up with that?  By the time Cecilia is spreading dirt or flour around on all the floors, we have to consider that maybe she's just gone completely off the deep end.  

Between this and "The Handmaid's Tale", Elisabeth Moss really has become the go-to actress for the neurotic doormat, I realize that her character was in a bad relationship, but when we first meet her she's got not only the fear of relationships, but anxiety over going outside, fear of being watched, intimacy issues, control issues, somehow she found the strength to leave her controlling husband, but then immediately reverts to a state of weakness.  Where did that resolve suddenly go?  Maybe it does work this way, I don't know - maybe the mistakes of the previous relationship do follow you around for months or even years.  Sometimes literally.

But pity the actor who gets the news from his agent that he's got the starring role in that new big horror movie, only to find out that he's going to be playing the Invisible Man, and he won't be seen for about 95% of the film...

I'm trying lately to not overthink things, and just let things go when they don't make much sense.  BUT, if I were still that guy who called out the NITPICK POINTS I'd be inclined to mention that even if a person were wearing a special suit that was covered in a ton of tiny cameras that could somehow each take a picture of what you might see on the other side of a person, and transmit that to a tiny screen that was somehow not blocking another one of the cameras, and thus it would appear from all the tiny screens together that you were looking THROUGH the person instead of at him, that image, theoretically, would never look QUITE right, because the angle would be wrong.  You'd be across the room, so the image your eyes would expect to see, let's say of the wall behind the Invisible Man, wouldn't be completely matched by the one taken by the camera that was on his back, so I'd have to call B.S. on this technology, as depicted here.  At the very least, even if the suit was working perfectly, you'd see a kind of shimmer as he walked by, as the projected images wouldn't totally line up right. 

This project was originally going to be part of a shared universe for the old Universal Monsters, like Dracula, Frankenstein and the Wolfman.  Remember how Dr. Jekyll turned up in that Tom Cruise re-boot of "The Mummy"?  After that movie tanked, the plans changed and so somebody decided to re-work the "Invisible Man" part of the franchise into a new stand-alone film, but one that really drew power from the #metoo movement, with a strong female character.  So Johnny Depp was out as the main character, which is probably a good idea, because who would believe that Johnny Depp would be involved in a bad relationship, with a husband and wife each trying to get control over the other?  Hey, wait a minute...

Then the film had the bad fortune of booking a release date in February 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic was starting to hit, and people stopped going to movie theaters.  This was doubly ironic, since it featured a main character who for the first third of the film is under lockdown and afraid to leave the house.  Still, the film managed to turn a profit, grossing $144 million against a $7 million budget, partially because it was played a lot in drive-ins, which re-opened in some parts of the U.S. before regular theaters did. 

Also starring Elisabeth Moss (last seen in "The French Dispatch"), Oliver Jackson-Cohen (last seen in "The Lost Daughter"), Harriet Dyer, Aldis Hodge (last seen in "One Night in MIami...."), Storm Reid (last seen in "Don't Let Go"), Michael Dorman (last seen in "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales"), Benedict Hardie (last seen in "The Light Between Oceans"), Renee Lim, Brian Meegan, Nick Kici, Nicholas Hope (last seen in "Scooby-Doo"), Sam Smith, Vivienne Greer, Cleave Williams, Cardwell Lynch, Zara Michales, Nash Edgerton (last seen in "Jane Got a Gun"), Xavier Fernandez (last seen in "Fool's Gold"). 

RATING: 7 out of 10 camera pans to "empty" spaces

Love and Monsters

Year 14, Day 301 - 10/28/22 - Movie #4,272

BEFORE: OK, now that I'm back on more monster-y monsters I'm feeling good about The Road to Halloween.  "Muppets Haunted Mansion" and "Hotel Transylvania 4" are way in the rear-view, and it's time to get serious.  Just in time, because Halloween's on Monday, it's going to be tough for me to stay on track because I'm working all day tomorrow at the theater, like a 12-hour shift.  So I can't watch a movie tonight, because if I stay up too late then I'll oversleep, then there goes that job - I HAVE to be there at 6 am with the keys to open the theater. If I were a younger man, I'd just stay up all night and go for 36 without sleep, but I can't do that any more, I think our vacation last week proved that. I stayed up to catch an early morning flight and I was just no good that day, and I needed afternoon naps for about four or five hours before I could catch up.

OK, so no movie Friday night, no caffeine or sugar either, I need to be asleep by midnight to have a chance of getting any solid rest, before a long shift.  I'll just have to watch my Saturday movie on Saturday night (I know, it sounds crazy...) and then proceed from there.  This is why I like to start movies the night before, so if something DOES come up that prevents me from watching a late-night movie, I'll still have time to get the film in the following evening. 

Jessica Henwick carries over from "Underwater". 

THE PLOT: Seven years after surviving the monster apocalypse, lovably hapless Joel leaves his cozy underground bunker behind on a quest to reunite with his ex. 

AFTER: Well, I'll give this one points for originality, I've never seen an apocalyptic story quite like this one.  The lead-in starts with an asteroid approaching Earth, likely the kind that's going to wipe out all of human civilization, as many of us have come to expect.  (Well, there ARE a lot of asteroids out there, so I suppose it's just a matter ot fime....). But WAIT, humans send up a bunch of rockets or missiles that blow the asteroid up, or knock it off course.  So the planet is saved...but then there's chemical fallout from the explosions that affects all life on Earth, turning all of the smaller, non-human life-forms into giant monsters.  So this also means the end of civilization as we know it, just in a way that we weren't expecting.  All right, I'll roll with it. 

(Well, OF COURSE I have nitpick points, the two main ones being: did we HAVE to use rockets with toxic chemicals with unknown side-effects in them?  I mean, it seems easy, just build the rockets and DON'T use any materials that are untested or possibly hazardous, right?  AND then of course there's another question, which is - if the chemicals fell from the rocket and affected the whole planet?  Aren't humans part of that "whole planet" thing?  Why weren't humans affected by the chemicals, did we as a species build up some kind of immunity by drinking diet sodas?  My point is, if there can be giant snails and giant worms, where are the giant humans?)                                           

The only other sticking point was that the lead character does a lot of talking to himself, but over the course of the film I came to accept that and I was rooting for him by the end. He's that certain kind of loser/loner/everyman, and maybe you see a little of yourself in him, and thus you're right with him on his quest and you want him to succeed.  Or maybe not, maybe you're a total bastard or a socipath, but I was cheering him on as he tried to travel 90 miles on foot through a land where nearly everything wants to kill him.   

Huh, maybe the secret to enjoying movies more is for me to not overthink them, and stop taking them so seriously.  I wish I could do that more often, because when I do, I think I stand a better chance of having a good time.  So, there you go, give this one a whirl if you can, just try not to take it so seriously, relax and try to enjoy it. You're welcome. Since the world's going to end soon, anyway...I'm fairly certain of it.                    

Also starring Dylan O'Brien (last seen in "Deepwater Horizon"), Michael Rooker (last heard in "Vivo"), Dan Ewing, Ariana Greenblatt (last seen in "In the Heights"), Ellen Hollman, Tre Hale, Pacharo Mzembe, Senie Priti, Amali Golden, Te Kohe Tuhaka, Tasneem Roc, Thomas Campbell, Joel Pierce, Melanie Zanetti, Bruce Spence (last seen in "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales"), Hazel Phillips, Miriama Smith, Andrew Buchanan, Tandi Wright, Damien Garvey, Julia Johnson, Donnie Baxter, 

RATING: 8 out of 10 sand-gobblers

Underwater

Year 14, Day 300 - 10/27/22 - Movie #4,271

BEFORE: This film (and tomorrow's) got stranded last October when I found out that Jessica Henwick's scenes got cut from "Godzilla vs. Kong", I had to scramble at the last minute to find another way to get to my Halloween film, thankfully I had sort of a back-up.  I just wish that Hollywood directors would consult me more often before editing people out of their films, last-minute changes can really screw me up. But see, it's OK because I've circled back to it, which encourages me that anything I don't get to this year, I can maybe get to next time.  My horror film list is a mess right now, I think the longest chain I can form out of it is 15 films, but that could change, more films will be added to the list over the next few months, and I'll try to forget about it for a while and then work my linking magic on it next spring, which will give me the whole summer to figure out how to get there. 

Kristen Stewart carries over from "Lizzie". By my count it's 5 films until Halloween, 20 films until Thanksgiving, and 30 films until Christmas and the end of Movie Year 14. 

THE PLOT: A crew of oceanic researchers working for a deep-sea drilling company try to get to safety after a mysterious earthquake devastates their research facility located at the bottom of the Mariana Trench

AFTER: Well, maybe sometimes a film needs to sit on my DVR for an extra year, it needs to learn its lesson, be trained not to be bad.  Too bad the process doesn't work that way. 

I had trouble staying awake during this film, so I had to rewind several times to find that spot, about 25 minutes in, where I kept drifting off. But this is perhaps a fine example of a movie that actually could be improved by falling asleep. That's the way I recommend watching it, in fact. 

This story plays out like the early "Alien" films, just set at the bottom of the ocean instead of in outer space. It's also set in the future, some year like 2050 when humans have to resort to drilling in the Mariana Trench to find oil, so I assume that they emptied out every other place on Earth?  Like, why else would they set up a drilling station at such an unreasonably deep spot, where the water pressure is so great that the building could collapse at any given moment? Explain how this makes any sense...

Another bad sign, I found myself rooting for the sea monsters...I couldn't wait until they started picking off the survivors, one by one, as they made their way across the ocean floor (?) to the next station.  If that's really what was happening, honestly it was hard to tell because everything was so dark and murky, all the time. 

Hey, maybe WE'RE the monsters, just saying.  We're the invasive species, coming down into the water where we don't belong, just to get those last few drops of oil.  Sure, it's international waters based on our human laws, but maybe the creatures who live down in the trench don't see it that way.  If that's the case, the scientists and drillers and oil-company shills got exactly what they deserved - they knew the risks, after all. 

Also starring Vincent Cassel (last heard in "Becoming Cousteau"), Mamoudou Athie (last seen in "Jurassic World Dominion"), T.J. Miller (last seen in "Office Christmas Party"), John Gallagher Jr. (last seen in "Peppermint"), Jessica Henwick (last seen in "On the Rocks"), Gunner Wright (last seen in "King Richard"), Fiona Rene, Amanda Troop. 

RATING: 3 out of 10 references to "Alice in Wonderland", for some reason. 

Lizzie

Year 14, Day 299 - 10/26/22 - Movie #4,270

BEFORE: I seem to be in a run of horror films/thrillers with strong female central characters, this reaches back to before the vacation, with "Ma" and "The Witches".  And this week "Colossal", "Swallow" and now it's a fresh take on Lizzie Borden, the infamous woman from Fall River, MA, who was accused of killing her parents with an axe.  From what I've heard, this film was pretty controversial a couple years ago, and I think not just because it had Kristen Stewart in it.  This was based on a book, I think, that set out to stir up some new controversy over this 130-year old murder trial, which I now realize I don't know very much about, but after the film I'll go straight to Wikipedia to try to separate fact from ficiton.  

Denis O'Hare carries over from "Swallow". 

THE PLOT: A psychological thriller based on the infamous 1892 murders of Lizzie Borden's family. 

AFTER: Well, clearly we can see that whenever someone makes a historical biopic or a period piece, it's done with the sensibilities of a modern writer or director, there's just no getting around that, because none of us truly know what it meant to be alive in 1892, we can guess and speculate but we can't really be sure about anything.  Lizzie Borden was described as a "feminist", but what did that mean back then?  Was it the same concept as it was in the 1960's, the 1980's, or today?  It's tough to say for sure.  But clearly the men back then had strong opinions about what women's role in society should be, remember before 1920 women couldn't vote, and most couldn't hold down jobs except for cook or maid, and society had determined that the best thing a woman could do was to marry well and then look after husband, who was the one that went out had earned money.  I know, the U.S. of the 1890's feels a lot like some foreign backwards Third World country sometimes. 

The speculation in this story sort of starts with that feminist angle and then says, "Well, what if she were really super-feminist, and what if she liked women?" which may or may not be the next logical step, depending on your point of view.  It's certainly possible, there had to be gay women back then, but just because it was possible doesn't mean that it was true. Still, possible - and I'm sorry, but as a title, "Lezzie Borden" was RIGHT THERE.  Forgive me for being blunt, and liking puns just a little too much maybe.  Portraying Lizzie Borden as a lesbian is also a convenient short-cut to set up conflict with her parents, if they knew about her orientation - sorry, that's a dirty word these days, so is "sexual preference" - if they knew about her sexual identity they might have a problem with it.  Again, possible, but that doesn't make it true.  

(ASIDE: I'm thinking that "Lezzie Borden" is probably being used by a drag king somewhere as a stage persona, or at the very least, it's the registered name of someone competing in female roller derby.  Gonna Google it to check - yep, there's a roller derby person with that name, also a queer horror movie critic. Should've seen that one coming...)

But I'm glad to learn that the Borden's maid, Bridget "Maggie" Sullivan, was a real person, she wasn't a character invented for this movie to make Lizzie a more likely lesbian.  However, there's nothing really certain in the history books that says that Lizzie and Bridget were a couple, or for that matter, there's no record of Lizzie's father forcing himself on Bridget sexually, it's another thing that is both speculative and makes a little bit of sense after the fact, creating another motive for the murders, but then this makes me wonder if some writer is really connecting the dots in the proper fashion, or if they're connecting dots with the lines THEY want to craft the story that THEY want to create. 

Conventional wisdom is that Lizzie Borden killed both of her parents - and she's still the main suspect in this 130-year old case, but she's not the only one.  Bridget Sullivan is another, if you want to believe that Andrew Borden was raping or molesting her then there's motive there.  Emma Borden, Lizzie's sister, also lived in the house, and like Lizzie she was concerned that her inheritance might not be guaranteed, especially if her maternal uncle were placed in charge of it.  That uncle was John Morse, and it's not too far-fetched to think that he might have had a hand in the killings, because then he could be named executor of their estate.  If forensic science had been a little more advanced in 1892, a proper CSI investigation could have shed some light on these murder, but I think even fingerprinting wasn't around back then, or it might have been at a very early stage.  The only thing that investigators could tell back then was that Abby, Lizzie's mother, had been killed an hour or two before her father.  Which is significant, because if Abby Borden died first, her estate would be inherited by her husband, and then upon his death that wealth would be distributed according to HIS will, presumably to his daughters. 

If Mr. Borden had been killed first, the estate would transfer to his wife, and then to HER heirs, not his, since she was his second wife.  

What's odd about the trial of Lizzie Borden isn't the fact that the maid vouched for her whereabouts at the time of the murders, it's the fact that Lizzie herself was never put on the stand, perhaps because her answers to police investigators were so vague and cryptic, but still, she stuck to her story.  But the prosecution didn't even TRY to make her seem like an unreliable witness?  Jeez, guys, this is "Law & Order" 101.  She was acquitted by a jury of 12 men - which I guess means women couldn't serve on juries back then, either - who simply couldn't believe that a woman of her high social standing could kill her parents with an ax. This would be kind of like if the jurors in the O.J. Simpson trial were all fans of the "Naked Gun" movies, and couldn't see him as anything but a lovable comedian.

The film states that after the trial, Lizzie and Bridget went their separate ways, but other reports say that they lived together for 12 years after the incident, and perhaps split when Bridget came to believe that Lizzie was in fact guilty and not innocent.  Bridget moved to Montana, worked as a maid and married a man she met there, and allegedly gave a death-bed confession in 1948 about changing her testimony at the trial.  So I guess that's about as close as we're going to get to solving this case after the fact.  Hey, did anyone ever figure out that JonBenet Ramsey thing?

Eventually, the film does get around to showing us what it wants us to believe went down on the day in question, August 4, 1892.  I mean, I guess if you're going to kill somebody, it makes sense to be naked, because then you don't get all that blood on your clothes. Just saying.  But if you've tuned in to this one for the nudity, then you may be here for the wrong reasons. I'm sure this is somebody's favorite fetish film, but that person might also need professional help. In the end I'm not sure that it helps Lizzie to be portrayed as a lesbian, or if that helps feminism or the gay rights movement.  Let's just say it's a muddle. Gay people, do you want to claim Lizzie Borden?  Because if you want to claim James Buchanan and Abe Lincoln, you've got to bring her along, too - gotta take the bad with the good.  

Really, it's just one small mental leap from this depiction to "repressed lesbians are axe murderers", isn't it?  I'm not saying I agree with that, but it's the easy take-away here. 

Also starring Chloe Sevigny (last seen in "Shattered Glass"), Kristen Stewart (last seen in "Equals"), Jamey Sheridan (last seen in "Driven"), Fiona Shaw (last seen in "Ammonite"), Kim Dickens (last seen in "The Blind Side"), Jeff Perry (last seen in "The Grifters"), Tara Ochs (last seen in "Selma"), Daniel Wachs, Jody Matzer, Don Henderson Baker (last seen in "October Sky"), Jay Huguley (last seen in "The Eyes of Tammy Faye"), Roscoe Sandlin, Tom Thon, Katharine Harrington, Darin Cooper (last seen in "Ford v Ferrari"), Laura Whyte (last seen in "The Dilemma"), Terry Jackson. 

RATING: 4 out of 10 pigeons in a coop

Swallow

Year 14, Day 298 - 10/25/22 - Movie #4,269

BEFORE: OK, let me just say that I tried.  I tried to get something more Halloween-like here, only my efforts were thwarted.  I could have had Tim Blake Nelson carry over to "Nightmare Alley", a Guillermo Del Toro film I really want to see.  Or I could have had Dan Stevens carry over to "The Sea Beast", an animated film about a sea monster, or "Blithe Spirit", which is about ghosts or seances, I think. Or "The Rental", which I think is also a horror movie. But the problem is, none of those films get me where I want to be, I already worked out my connections to Thanksgiving and Christmas, and those films just won't get me there - or if they do, I wasn't able to see the path.

Keep in mind that both of my theme months, October and February, are sometimes made up of small chains that get pieced together, smaller groups of bricks that get mortared together to form a wall. So maybe tonight's film is mortar, not a brick, I don't know, but it connected the end of one small chain with the start of another, and that small chain that starts tomorrow is going to get me to Halloween, then via the new "Matrix" film I'll be headed towards Thanksgiving, then Christmas. 

So no, maybe this isn't a true horror film, because there are no monsters or ghosts or demons in it. But read the plot line, because there's a reason why I lumped this one in with horror films in the first place - even if it's not blatant horror, it's at least horrific, I'm thinking.  Hey, last year I had to use the "Spielberg" documentary to connect two chains together, I'll do what it takes to keep the chain going, even if I'm bending my own rules in the process. 

Austin Stowell carries over from "Colossal". And if this one isn't your bag, I promise more films about monsters and serial killers are on the way. 

THE PLOT: Hunter, a newly pregnant housewife, finds herself increasingly compelled to consume dangerous objects.  As her husband and his family tighten their control over her life, she must confront the dark secret behind her new obsession.  

AFTER: Well, I'm just going to say that I was wrong about there not being any monsters or ghosts or demons in this film, there are all three. The monsters are Hunter's husband and in-laws, who berate and belittle her at every opportunity, to the point where her opinion on anything never matters.  There's just no way she's ever going to be an equal partner in that marriage, I think because the family has some money and she doesn't, so she's always, ALWAYS going to be made to feel "less than" by them. And the ghosts are in her past, her back-story has violence and an event that she may feel shame over, even if it's not her fault.  And then there are the inner demons that all of this chaos and uncertainty in her life cause and feed.  

Even if we're not exactly sure how all of these things lead Hunter toward swallowing non-edible things, there's still more of a connection here than I saw last night in "Colossal" between the toxic relationships and the fallout from them. I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out how a boy destroying a girl's 8th grade school project in spite led to her manifesting a giant monster from her subconscious, halfway around the world. But maybe it's a bit easier to see how a woman constantly being made to feel like her opinion doesn't matter might go a little off the deep end and start swallowing marbles and thumbtacks. 

It's still quite disturbing, make no mistake, and it's very hard to understand for those of us who were yelled at in grade school for eating paste, or paper, or dirt.  To some degree, those things might be part of the learning process, and some people learn the hard way not to chew their pencils or put the caps of pens in their mouth - I recall that certain brands of pens had to put holes in their caps just in case a kid swallowed one, then they might not die if air could still pass through the swallowed object. And I'm old enough to remember when certain toys were designated as choking hazards because they had pieces that were small enough for little kids to swallow. 

And as if it weren't hard enough to be a parent, even some foods are choking hazards for kids, depending on their ages and sizes.  For toddlers items like corn kernels, grapes or chunks of meat and cheese are choking hazards, which I guess is why all baby food needs to be puréed.  This is part of the reason why I'm not a parent, because it's just so much damn work, and I don't like cutting my own food into tiny pieces, so why should I do that for another human?  Right, to keep them alive.  It seems like nearly everything can kill a baby, even eating wrong and sleeping wrong, so to me it's a wonder how so many of them manage to grow up. I've got a nephew who had digestive problems when he was a toddler, and the only things he could eat were cut-up grapes and goldfish crackers.  But now he's 14, and he still only eats grapes and and goldfish crackers, from what I can tell. I guess once someone gets into a pattern of behavior it's very hard to pull them out of it, but I really wonder what's going to happen when and if he ever wants to try some other food. If he were my kid, I'd tell him there's a great big wonderful world of foods out there to try, but it's not my place to do so. But there I was with my sister's family in North Carolina and everyone was enjoying delicious BBQ meats but him, he stuck with his goldfish crackers, and I guess on one level I admire his commitment to them, but come on, he's missing out on so much!  

To me, the best part of life is traveling around and eating different foods - not just the BBQ of different cities, but I love sushi and pad thai and deli meats and fried chicken, and even salad if I can get one with a good balsamic vinaigrette, maybe some goat cheese and beets in there. I was married to a woman who went vegetarian, and I just couldn't handle it.  We broke up for several other reasons, but not being on the same culinary page was perhaps the start of it. My second wife doesn't eat any seafood, which is also hard for me to understand because I grew up in New England - but I do my best to understand it and honor her choices. For me, I'm not big on a number of fruits, like melons and berries and anything exotic like kiwi or dragonfruit. I don't like bananas either, but sweet plantains with Latin food is fine. But the only "good" fruits to me are apples, grapes, oranges, lemons, limes and raspberry products like jam and fillings, but not the raspberries themselves.  My point is, we all have our dietary quirks, likes and dislikes. 

That being said, swallowing marbles, thumbtacks, needles is way off the board. Pica is the name of this eating disorder that compels people to consume or crave non-food items.  And, yes, this plot checks out because Wiki is telling me that emotional trauma, family issues, and pregnancy can all be risk factors for pica.  And then within the larger umbrella of pica there are different subtypes, like xylophagia (eating paper), geophagia (eating soil, sand or clay), hyalophagia (eating glass), lithophagia (stones), acuphagia (sharp objects), metallophagia (metal), trichophagia (hair, wool) and yes, coprophagia (umm, feces). What's probably unusual about the depiction of Hunter here is that she doesn't seem to have a special focus, she eats things from several of these categories, probably for dramatic effect or creative license.  I remember that I liked chewing ice cubes when I was a kid, which is called pagophagia, and my mother was always afraid I was going to break my teeth while doing so, but that never happened. I don't know when or why I stopped, I just kind of grew out of it, I guess. 

How many people suffer from this is tough to determine, because many pica sufferers may be reluctant to admit their condition and seek treatment. The pregnancy angle is a bit disconcerting, because we're already familiar with pregnant women having cravings for things like pickles, how many also have cravings for eating paper or dirt? And how few of those women understand this and are willing to talk about it? And the desires might also be linked to anemia or places in the world where people have a mineral-deficient diet. Makes sense, I guess, if your body needs iron or other minerals, and vitamins or supplements are not available, your brain somehow tells you to eat soil or metal?  

For Hunter, her husband and in-laws try to "cure" her of her condition, and of course first they try yelling at her, but as you might imagine, that only makes the situation worse. They also hire someone to follow her around all day and watch her as she does chores, because of course they're all much too busy to do that themselves. Then they try to commit her to a mental institution, because by continuing to swallow dangerous objects, she's putting her unborn baby's life at risk, in addition to her own. But maybe there's a reason for that, maybe she never really wanted the baby in the first place, perhaps she's just living the life that other people want her to live, rather than the one SHE wants to live.  Either way, she finds a way to get away from the family in order to try and crack the code of her own life, resolve those issues from long ago, figure out who she wants to be, and then, only then, does she maybe have a shot at being happy, or at least content.  

There's obviously an abortion angle here, and this is the hot-button topic of the day right now, since several states have seen fit to find a way to take away a right that's been legal in the U.S. for fifty years. While I don't really have a dog in this fight, I support a woman's right to choose and a man's right to shut the hell up about it. Do I wish there were fewer abortions?  Well, sure, OK, but to insure that you've got to fund sex education and birth control, and for some unknown reason, the same people who are against abortion are also against those helpful things, too. Which I don't understand, wouldn't it be a great idea if the unwanted unborn babies never got conceived in the first place?  Then we wouldn't have a problem, would we?  But no, they don't want to interfere with "God's will", whatever that means.  What a crock of shit, does God really want us to be so fruitful and multiply to the extent where we use up all the Earth's natural resources and then suffer and die together as a species?  That makes zero sense, if God cared about us he'd let us figure out a way to keep the world's population down to a minimum so that all the people who are alive can enjoy it more.  But since God doesn't exist, or if he does, he doesn't get involved in the day-to-day operations on Earth, so we should all stop living based on what we THINK God wants us to do, and start living in ways that make more sense, long-term. 

Those who might think the best way to stop or reduce abortions is through legislation are flat-out wrong, the way to stop or reduce abortions is through sex education and birth control.  If conservatives could cave a bit on these issues, just maybe both sides could meet somewhere in the middle?  Or is that too much to hope for? Either way, I'm anticipating the results of the November election, hoping that the pendulum swings back in the liberal direction, because I believe that's better for the planet and the long-term survival of mankind.  If God doesn't see things that way, let him tell me that himself, but so far he's been notoriously silent. 

This film made only $33,000 at the box office, which I don't quite understand - or then again, maybe I do. If you make a film about a masked serial killer chopping people up with knives or a chainsaw, people seem to be fascinated by that.  But make a film about somebody swallowing marbles and needles, and they'll stay away in droves.  That's where we find ourselves, I guess. 

There is a popular trick where a magician appears to swallow several needles and a length of thread, and we are meant to believe that somehow he threads all the needles while they are in his stomach, then he regurgitates them with all of the needles hanging from the thread.  I call b.s. on this, because it's much easier to believe that sleight of hand is involved, and also distraction, these are the magician's best friends. And he can PRETEND to swallow them without actually doing so, then at some point distract the audience, remove the unthreaded needles from his mouth and replace them with the threaded set, thus completing the illusion.  It seems Harry Houdini started the trick with the threaded needle set already between his bottom lip and gums, sorry to burst anyone's bubble. The trick is also sometimes done with razor blades, you can look up on the internet how that variation is done, but bear in mind that if the magician actually swallowed the blades, his esophagus would be cut to ribbons. 

But then there's also Stevie Starr, aka "The Regurgitator", and if anybody's actually swallowing things and bringing them up again from his stomach in whatever order or condition he chooses, then it's him. However, some people believe that he's just an illusionist, and a very good one. The items he "brings up" again are generally free of stomach acid, though, that may be an indicator that something else is taking place, other than what we're being told. 

I'll stick with deep-fried items from the State Fair, thanks.  When I told my boss yesterday what I ate at the fairs, including a deep-fried cheeseburger, a deep-fried apple pie, and deep-fried Reese's peanut butter cups wrapped in bacon, he said, "You know, all this seems rather unhealthy..." Umm, yeah, that's kind of the point.

Also starring Haley Bennett (last seen in "Hillbilly Elegy"), Denis O'Hare (last seen in "The Normal Heart"), Elizabeth Marvel (last seen in "The Phenom"), David Rasche (last seen in "The Sentinel"), Luna Lauren Velez (last seen in "The First Purge"), Zabryna Guevara, Laith Nakli, Babak Tafti (last seen in "Terminator Salvation"), Nicole Kang, Olivia Perez (last seen in 'In the Heights"), Kristi Kirk, Alyssa Bresnahan, Maya Days, Elise Santora, Kathleen Butler, Nicholas M. Garofolo. 

RATING: 5 out of 10 rubber gloves

Colossal

Year 14, Day 297 - 10/24/22 - Movie #4,268

BEFORE: I'm back from vacation, and ready to take on the last 8 horror-based (mostly) films in the Shocktober chain. Let's see, 8 days left, 8 films, I think I may have planned this month out correctly, as Anne Hathaway carries over from "The Witches".

But first, a brief run-down of our latest trip across the south - this was BBQ Crawl #3, we passed on a trip like this in 2019 so we could do a Casino Crawl in Vegas, and then of course the pandemic happened, so it's been FOUR years since our last BBQ-based adventure, and man, we were feeling it. I don't remember needing to take so many naps on our previous vacations - but we are four years older now, so it does sort of make sense.

Saturday, we arrived in Atlanta early to get a jump on things, but to get to the airport for a 6 am flight, that meant leaving the house at 3 am, which for me meant staying up all night. So once we got to our hotel, I slept for a while, and I spent the next few days trying to catch up on sleep.  But after a nap we hit the Taste of Soul Festival across from Mercedes-Benz Stadium, which turned out to just be a 2-block long street fair. BUT there was one BBQ stand, so I had ribs, which meant the event was not a total loss. Then we hit the World of Coca-Cola Museum, where we learned about the history of Coke, the secret formula of Coke, the advertising of Coke, and basically everything one might need to know about Coke. Then we hit the tasting room to sample Coca-Cola products from around the globe, most of them were terrible and made me proud to be an American. That night I ventured out on the streets of Atlanta looking for a hidden cheesecake shop in a mall called the Underground, only to find it had closed, but instead I stumbled upon some late-night activities there like a secret Masquerade Ball (think "Eyes Wide Shut" maybe), a hip-hop concert, and I'm not saying there was a Fight Club, because if there were, I couldn't talk about it. But there was a pizza stand, so I came back to the hotel with pizza. 

Sunday meant a trip to Waffle House, which my wife loves, then we struck out north of Atlanta to find a giant antiques mall in Cumming, GA, which also had a BBQ restaurant inside it. Another nap, then we met a high-school friend of my wife's for dinner at a steakhouse in a mall west of the city. Monday, we just set out to have fun, we visited Skyline Park but it didn't open until 3 pm, and under it was Ponce Market, which was just a giant hipster food hall with a few expensive stores. OK, change of plans, I grabbed a tourist guide to "Secret Atlanta" and found a 3/4 scale replica of the White House in Decatur, so we drove off to see that and then came back for lunch at The Varsity, a famous college hang-out famous for its hot dogs. Then a bit of daydrinking at the HobNob Tavern in Atlantic Station, followed by a trip to Fox Bros. BBQ, where they serve deep-fried ribs with Alabama white sauce. If that's not enough to make you want to visit, then we maybe don't have much in common. All the BBQ was great but those ribs were just beyond. 

Tuesday we hit another Waffle House (Georgia is the state with the most Waffle Houses, or is it Waffles House?) and set out for Columbia, S.C. famous for its mustard-based BBQ sauce. I learned that they actually serve all the BBQ sauces in South Carolina (no white sauce though) but since they're the only state that serves the mustard-based sauce, that's what they're known for. This is why we do the Crawl, to learn about each city's different techniques, it's almost like having different religions that mostly preach the same things, but there are still differences. Then on Wednesday we hit the South Carolina State Fair, where I ate a bacon cinnamon roll, a donut burger, a corn dog and a fried bologna sandwich. Yes, it sounds like a lot, but this was over the course of three or four hours and I was actually holding back (sort of...). We saw chainsaw carving, sand sculptures, all kinds of crafts and even pig racing at the fair. 

Last Thursday was my birthday, and we spent it at another Waffle House, then driving to Raleigh, North Carolina, where my sister lives. The first night we just hung out at her house, got burgers for take-out and I had some beers. But come Friday, we were at the North Carolina State Fair, where I had a deep-fried cheeseburger, a pork chop sandwich, chicken & waffles on a stick and a deep-fried apple pie with cinnamon ice cream. Saw a dog and camel show, also an act called "Cast in Bronze" which was on "America's Got Talent" a few years ago, it's a guy playing the carillon, which is a series of bells held in a frame and played like a pipe organ, sort of. Then I finished off with some deep-fried Reese's Peanut Butter cups, wrapped in bacon and battered, covered with powdered sugar. Don't knock it if you haven't tried it. 

Saturday rolled around again, and after a diner breakfast we did a little shopping, since our hotel was right in the middle of a giant mall-like area. Then we visited a geek-based Halloween market with my sister and her family, before heading out for, of course, barbecue.  North Carolina has its own spin on pork and brisket, mostly they use that thin vinegar-based sauce, but I'm all about trying out each city's BBQ religion and giving them all a chance. So one more giant platter with ribs, chopped pork, sliced brisket and BBQ dark chicken, plus potato salad, beans, biscuits and Hush Puppies. Then Sunday we just headed for the airport to return the rental car and catch our flight, but there was a problem with the plane, and Delta had to fly in another plane just to replace that plane, which added a few hours to our trip home, but in the end I'd rather not switch a flight just to get home faster, because then you never know, you might make it home but your luggage won't, so I'm in favor of staying the course and not panicking, there's food at the airport so why not just relax, have some fried chicken and not worry about it?  

THE PLOT: Gloria is an out-of-work party girl forced to leave her life in New York City and move back home. When reports surface that a giant creature is destroying Seoul, she gradually comes to the realization that she is somehow connected to this phenomenon. 

AFTER: Come on, say it with me this time - "THIS is a weird movie."  Almost TOO weird, but then maybe there's no such thing as "too weird", there's really no bottom to that chasm, now, is there?  We're meant to believe that whenever this messed-up woman walks over a certain spot on a certain playground in a small New Hampshire town, then a giant colossal monster appears in the city of Seoul, South Korea.  And her movements on the playground in New Hampshire are mimicked by the monster, meaning that she could easily step on people on the ground, or swat a helicopter out of the sky, if she's not careful.  But I'm kind of getting ahead of myself here, first the movie starts out just like any little indie film, with a woman who's got a drinking problem, causing her NYC boyfriend to break up with her, which causes her to return to the small town she grew up in to try to get herself together, or maybe start over.  

But the problem there is, she bumps into her childhood friend, Oscar, who now runs his late father's bar, and after accepting a waitress job at the bar, Gloria falls into another cycle of bad relationship juju, she's just traded downward and a love/hate relationship with Oscar develops.  Clearly she only thinks of him as a friend, but when she starts dating Oscar's more attractive friend Joel, Oscar gets jealous, and before long he's making her work late shifts and allowing her to drink at a bar, when we all know that a bar is the last place where a person with a drinking problem should work.  But Oscar also keeps bringing Gloria free furniture for her parents empty house, plus he's her boss, so I guess that's a complicated relationship?  

Things get worse when the colossal beast shows up in South Korea for the first time in 25 years, and not-so coincidentally, Gloria hasn't been in her hometown for exactly that period of time - so she starts to realize that she and the monster are connected, and I guess this is some kind of metaphor, but it kind of falls JUST short of having some meaning.  Like, is this the beast within her, or does the beast symbolize her drinking problem, or her self-destructive behavior?  A little clarity here might help the film, but the movie in general is very unclear on the "HOW" and "WHY" of everything.  

And you might think that the solutions to Gloria's problems would be very simple, like maybe don't drink so much, or don't work at a bar, or don't walk through the playground if you know that walking there causes the monster to appear in Seoul.  Or, I don't know, maybe leave town all together if that's where the nexus or the portal or whatever is. Then maybe work on your issues, go to some AA meetings, see a therapist, do something positive or constructive, because clearly whatever you've done so far just ain't working.  But no, Gloria decides to show Oscar and his friends that when she walks through the playground, the monster walks through Seoul.  When she dances in the playground, the monster dances in Seoul.  

What's worse is that Oscar then learns that he has the same ability, when he walks through the playground, a giant robot walks through Seoul.  Again, what does this mean?  Does he have a dark side also?  Why are these the only two people who have this power, does this mean that they are meant for each other, or are they meant to be each other's nemesis?  Again, is this a metaphor for the hostile nature of relationships, the battling monsters are from Venus and the giant robots are from Mars?  Is this a man/woman thing, deep down men are uncaring, unfeeling automatons and women are secretly beastly and dangerous to themselves and others? Or am I just reading too much into this situation?  No, that's OK, lazy screenwriter and lazier director, I'll do all the work, you just sit there. 

If I'm right, maybe this is an innovative mash-up of monster movie and relationship film - but maybe that's giving the film a bit too much credit.  I'm still scratching my head over the HOW and the WHY of it all, though. 

There's a huge NITPICK POINT to be made concerning the delay involved with a television broadcast, even if it involves a live feed.  The monster's movements appear to be completely in sync with Gloria's, but the monster is half a world away.  Even if something magical or mystical was involved here, and the signals from her brain could travel through the Earth or across the globe instantaneously, it would still take time for the video image from a camera to be uploaded to a central server, then broadcast, then sent to a live feed, then to the tablet that Oscar was holding.  There really is no "Now", even with an internet live-stream, you're always going to be looking at a few seconds ago, so syncing up her movements with the monster's doesn't make sense.  But during the pandemic there were bands that recorded music together, even though the band members were in different locations, so I'm thinking they must have used some software during the recording to account for any transmission delays, right?  

The bigger NITPICK POINT probably concerns how Gloria somehow got herself to Seoul without having enough money for plane fare - she probably wasn't making enough money as a waitress to pay for a last-minute flight to Korea, that would be a couple thousand dollars at least. Did she sneak aboard a cargo plane or something? 

The final confrontation between Gloria's monster and Oscar's robot makes even less sense than that - just saying. BUT, I will credit the film for getting one thing right, when it's 8:00 am in New Hampshire, it's nighttime in South Korea, and SO MANY films get this wrong, they show events happening in different parts of the globe and they just use the same lighting.  

Also starring Jason Sudeikis (last seen in "Driven"), Austin Stowell (last seen in "Fantasy Island"), Tim Blake Nelson (last seen in "Monster"), Dan Stevens (last seen in "The Call of the Wild"), Hannah Cheramy, Nathan Ellison, Sarah Surh, Haeun Hannah Cho, Joe Costa, Christine Lee, Rukiya Bernard (last seen in "Get Over It"), Agam Darshi (last seen in "Good Luck Chuck"). 

RATING: 5 out of 10 blackouts