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When Your Shame and Guilt Turn EVIL! “Prey for the Devil” reviewed! (Lionsgate / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Prey for the Devil” on Blu-ray home video.  Purchase a Copy Today!

The rite of exorcism has been strictly performed only by Catholic priest; a decree enforced by the Church for more than a century.  At the Saint Michael the Archangel School of Exorcism in Boston, Massachusetts, Ann, a young nurse caring for suspected possessed individuals, finds herself bound personally to a demon from her childhood.  An opened-minded Father invites her to study exorcism as an observer only, but when Ann is able to connect to beyond the demon of a terminally possessed little girl, her theory on exorcisms goes against Church doctrine.  Unable to officially help the little girl without agitating trouble, Ann performs back-alley exorcisms to prove her theories correct, bring her findings to the Church, prepare herself against a demon hungry for her soul, and save the life of a girl bound for transport to the Vatican where she will surely expire.  Ann’s past and present collide in a battle between light and dark with a young girl’s life hanging in the balance.

Possession and exorcism movies have become rather formulaic in the last two decades with more than most being derivative as surpassing the bar on William Friedkin’s “The Exorcist” has been an uphill battle, but, in my opinion, director Daniel Stamm has figured out a path to make the wavering subgenre emerge from the depths of the Netherworld and take possession with a different angle. “Prey for the Devil” is a terrifying tale by screenwriting partners and brothers Earl Richey Jones and Todd R. Jones, the first horror work from the “Rio” and “Johnson Family Vacation” writers, and the script, under the original working title of “The Devil’s Light, is designed by “Halloween H20” co-writer, Frank Zappia.  The Hamburg, Germany-born Stamm returns to the demonically charged, demon possession genre having found moderate success with fans in his 2010 pseudo-doc/found footage film “The Last Exorcism.”  More than a decade later, Stamm is still sending young girls up climbing up the corner of walls in his latest exorcism themed entry produced by the Jones brothers, Jeff Levine, Jessica Malanphy, and Paul Brooks under production companies Gold Circle Films (“Slither,” “Blood Creek”) and Lionsgate (“Saw” franchise).   

“Prey for the Devil” has an embattled protagonist facing two opposing fronts – one fowl demon hellbent on devouring the Godsent Ann from the inside out and one the Church solely for being a woman wanting to practice what’s been appointed as a man’s vocation. Jacqueline Byers has been penned to play the curious and targeted nun and the “Bad Samaritan” actress doesn’t disappoint being the center of attention without overstepping conceitedly into Ann’s habit. The story never feels like it’s Ann, paralleling similar to the overall theme of looking past the surface level demon and understanding the person’s state of consciousness that might have invited the demon inside. Byers evokes more curiosity of a woman drawn to exorcism because of her own past involving an abusive mother (Koyna Ruseva) who, when listening to the voice inside her head, would hurt child Ann with a tough tugging, decorative comb. In Ann’s way is the Church represented by Sister Euphemia (Lisa Palfrey, “The Feast”), Father Quinn (Colin Salmon, “Resident Evil”), and Cardinal Matthews, played by the late Ben Cross (“Exorcist: The Beginning”) who would succumb to cancer after the completion of his role. With a trifecta of solid performances, the Church opposition lacks fortitude in coming down hard on Ann for not only taking a shining toward a priest’s appointed aptitude, but also for performing an unauthorized exorcism on a desperate priest’s sister. Her desperate priest friend, Father Dante (Christian Navarro, “13 Reasons Why“), is a sympathetic friend without much skin in the game of sticking his white collared neck out for Ann. “Prey for the Devil” introduces the teenage actress Posy Taylor with a chillingly consumed Natalie who has a strong semblance to Regan when demonized to the fullest and in a while gown. The film rounds out the cast with Nicholas Ralph, Keith Bartlett, and “Candyman’s” Virginia Madsen as the psychiatrist using science to disprove possession.

“Prety for the Devil” sets the stage strong by defining from the very opening credits that women were forbidden to perform the rite of exorcism. There’s even back support from Sister Euphemia giving her glares of disapproval and a library that limits the access to priest approved restricted texts, but Ann slides into the realm of exorcisms when little push back that begs the question why no other nun ever attempted to enroll in the demon extraction rituals course? Perhaps being set in the permissive Boston and not the draconian Vatican might have something to do with it, but the theme of inequality is ultimately suppressed and dispelled from the story, leaving Sister Ann to face a one-front battle against the unholy creatures of the underworld inhabiting those closest to her. For supernatural special effects, the computer visual imagery renders a meticulously blended and seamless compositional execution from a team under VF/X supervisor Laurent Spillemaecker (“Overlord,” “Martyrs’). The mesh of reality and virtual reality becomes indistinguishable to the point where good scares scenes come about as a result. There are plenty physical effects that are joint into a pivot from the visuals and the motions don’t have an ounce of clunkiness to them. While we touched upon the theme of inequality of women in the Church, “Prey for the Devil’s” other theme revolves around a fairly common one in films today – guilt or shame. The new angle the story provides ceases to look at possession not from a demon focused level but to reach in and try to convince the person within that they’re at fault for whatever it is they grieve in shame for and to tell them whatever the case may be, no fault is put on them. Novel enough to be interesting, guilt and shame will forever be vilified and demonized, literally, in most horror. For “Prey for the Devil,” the element of anguish proves to be more powerful than most who utilize it, capitalizing in on the power of being overcome by it, and turning it into a nasty, soul-swallowing distemper one may not come back from. This is why Virginia Madsen’s psychiatrist character exists, to provide that presence of psychosis and other mental disabilities that sometimes appear to be demonic in nature to the naked, untrained eye. The story does well to create an alternate universe around this idea by having the Church admit patients with undiagnosed disorders as they could be more than what meets the eye.

Not quite the nunsploitation one might be hoping for, but “Prey for the Devil” envisages self-conscious emotions as a wide-open door for pain, suffering, and unmitigated self-punishment. Lionsgate Home Entertainment presents “Prety for the Devil” on a high definition, 1080p, AVC encoded Blu-ray, DVD, and digital code release with a widescreen 2.39:1 aspect ratio. With tight quarters of Saint Michaels, a fictional location setup from Sofia University in Palo Alto, California, the anamorphic lens compacts hallways and auditoriums cylindrically, offering more space than actuality, but the format doesn’t necessarily fit this type of a film that offers no vast landscape or much depth or long shots. Not much else to say negatively about the digital image that offers a darker, low contrasted tone. The audio track has three audio options: an English Dolby Atmos, a Spanish 5.1 Dolby Audio, and a French 5.1 Dolby Audio. For the English Atmos, the format fully immerses the viewer into a complete surround sound experience with each crescendo jump scares as well as in the middle of a good versus evil quarrel. Crisp and spatial, Atmos on the release takes advantage of the infrasound to build tension where it might be lost in other audio formats and also italicizes the ambient composition into the Nathan Barr’s (“From Dusk till Dawn 3: The Hangman’s Daughter”) classical and haunting lullaby scores. The special features include an audio commentary with director Daniel Stamm and principal lead actress Jacqueline Byers, a 41-minute featurette with in-depth and retrospective interviews with cast and crew Possessed: Creating Prey for the Devil, Nathan Barr’s discussion on creating the score for the film A Lullaby of Terror, exposing the film’s visuals effects The Devil’s Tricks, a feature-length, nearly 2-hour roundtable read of the original first screenplay draft from the cast, and an Exorcist and Psychologist discussion about the possession with screenwriter Robert Zappia mediating (or maybe even moderating) the comments. The physical release comes in a traditional Blu-ray snapper case with artwork cover pictured with one of film’s rememberable scenes. Inside is the digital code slip and outside the snapper is sheathed in a cardboard slipcover with the identical cover art. Possession-exorcism films are just as tired as the zombie subgenre, but “Prey for the Devil” possesses symbolic and doleful undertones inside a superbly acted and an intriguing alternate universe story that’s not too far from the truth in one of the Church’s more confrontational, as well as controversial, methods to battle evil.

“Prey for the Devil” on Blu-ray home video.  Purchase a Copy Today!

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Starve EVIL With Unseen Faith. “A Banquet” reviewed! (Second Sight / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

After the long-term care of her terminally ill suffering husband, he suddenly commits suicide right in front of her and right in front of their oldest daughter who just came home.  Holly must now pull it together for her two teenage daughters, Betsey and Isabelle.  Drowning in debt to maintain a wealth front of normalcy, Holly puts on the facade to juggle life’s adversities to order to keep the family above water, but when Betsey is overcome by an apocalyptic vision that intermittently possesses her behavior, Holly’s unsure of how to cope as any threats of committing Betsey for treatment is rebutted by talks of suicide.   Betsey goes into deep trances, deep sleeps, and won’t eat despite not losing any weight and as imaginations run wild of what’s driving her unusual behavior, Holly must contend to survive and triumph not only in her daughter’s wellbeing but in all of the seemingly insurmountable problems threatening to tumble down and crush her spirit.

If you’re a fan of elevated horror then Ruth Paxton’s debut dysfunctional family drama horror, “A Banquet,” will tickle your thinking pickle.  While some would argue there is no need for elevated horror in the genre, sometimes exercising the old thinker can be immensely stimulating as well as scary in the same breath.  The 2021 psychological thriller-horror hailing from the United Kingdom was one of the first productions shot in the thick of government issued pandemic lockdowns that tossed the moviemaking job market into a frenzy, scary void of uncertainly and, what seemed like, an eternal limbo, similar to what “A Banquet” offers in its multifarious themes and interpretations that involve faith and religion, family hierarchy, and postural image.  With many departmental crews and cast out of a job and unable to find work during forced lockdowns, “A Banquet” became a beacon of hope and a chance to indulge a passion no matter how little it paid.  “A Banquet” is penned by Justin Bull (“Merge”) and was secured by first time producer Leonora Darby with Nik Bower (“Replicas”), James Harris (47 Meters Down”), Mark Lane “Cockneys vs Zombies”), and Laure Vaysse (“A Dark Place”) co-producing the conglomerated production from HanWay Films, Riverstone Pictures, Tea Shop Productions, and Reliance Entertainment Productions 8 LTD.

“A Banquet” surrounds around a nuclear family minus the patriarch who immediately removed from the picture within the first five-minute opener in a powerful scene of weary difficulty, distressing pain, and a harsh untethering of a burden that begins the inklings of the uncanny to come. Enter mother Holly (Sienne Guillory, Paul W.S. Anderson’s “Resident Evil” franchise) and her two daughters, Betsey (Jessica Alexander) and Isabelle (Ruby Stokes), into the frame weeks, maybe months later, and resided to the loss. Playing the center of concern is the raven-haired Jessica Alexander in what is one of her first feature film performances and it’s a doozy.  As Betsey, a mild-manner older teenage girl at the forefront of adulthood, Alexander earns the chance to showcase herself in a variety of ways with a role that transcends from a docile daughter to a variable vessel of unknown origin that’s haunting and unpredictable as you can never tell what’s taken control over Betsey is naturally good or evil.  Alexander even gets to dip her toes into, or rather dig her fingers into, gross and horrifying practical effects with brilliant results.  Opposite Alexander in the role of the mother, Holly, is Sienna Guillory, a beguiling veteran actress now in the throes of maintaining the routine and keeping appearances aggregated up to snuff.  Guillory exudes a bottled-up pressure that’s so immense it can be translate right off the screen and into the viewer.  There’s plenty of tension in the story but most of it is concentrated right on Guillory’s embodiment of a mother treading desperately in deep waters.  A maelstrom of frustration, fear, loathing, and neglect eviscerate Holly open to shoulder her family’s bleeding and she claws frantically, with poise, to cauterize the fissure.  Isabelle is a fascinating and almost unintentionally forgotten character that is meant to evoke that effect as the neglected younger sister.  While we’re constantly orbiting Holly and Betsey’s, we lose track of Ruby Stokes’s Isabelle yet the upcoming star for Netflix’s “Lockwood and Co.” Stokes paints a potent psychological picture of Isabelle being on the backburner.  Raw and tragic, Stokes subtly pushes Isabelle, who initially is the more cavalier and disobedient of the two sisters, to strive for attention in her own way whether be that longing glance into the stands when her mother isn’t paying her mind during figuring skating instruction or wanting to reluctantly engage in alcohol and sex just to outlet that notice me energy elsewhere.  Concluding this bloodline of women is the more draconian matriarch, Grandmother June, with an uncompromising and plain-spoken fascia erected by Lindsay Duncan (“Body Parts”).  Duncan’s fine snide performance compounds the pressure on Holly and is a cold bucket of ice water to her granddaughters when speaking her mind, telling them simply stop pretending, and remind them of their mother’s own historical mental problems in a matter-of-fact tone.  Between the four, there’s individualistic dominance over each of their domain without an ounce of withdraw or relief until the bitter end and that dreadful dynamic sets the tone for the “A Banquet” austere veneer and tone.

“A Banquet” is a lot to unbox and chew on in this women-driven created film.  Open for a many number of interpretations, based on one own’s spiritual outlook or personal opinions, Ruth Paxton tees up a broader theme of centrical growth of stepping outside another’s shadow.  The message can be applied to Holly and her two daughters as each one of them attempts to move forward or past a routine of some form of contempt.  Isabelle is trying to get out of her sister’s shadow, Holly bristles against her overbearing mother, and Betsey is being supernaturally guided through a symbolically painful transition of growing up into an adult as if the process came naturally. Blunt defiant moments shine Betsey’s overall separation from mother’s control, such as threatening to kill herself if her mother institutionalizes her or in during the number of elaborately prepped dinners that Holly slave over are just pushed aside and untouched by Betsey. Those dinners, in themselves, are a sign of privileged with fine dining right at their fingertips with no sign of hot dogs or sloppy joes in sight. Holly strives to maintain that sense of luxury, which is another form of control but, in this case, is Holly’s mother June whose elitist fundamentals enslave Holly to live up to the hype. Systematically, each member of the family, working up the ladder from youngest to oldest, breaks the inherent status quo. What Betsey undergoes is mystically charged after she emerges from the woods a changed woman and what might seem like a possession of sorts, we don’t exactly know if the extent of what inhabits her is wicked or actually good as the pendulum sways constantly between being enlightened and being cursed. There’s plenty of allusions toward a religious experience with encouragement of faith and rapture talk that not only spooks Holly but also makes her the primary subject of Betsey’s claim to save. When the time does come, and Betsey passes through a substitutionary atonement, the end scene shows Holly being embraced by a candescent light that illuminates from within her. Is it being saved or is it something else? Ruth Paxton smashes her first feature with an elevated deconstruction of a family obliviously rotting at the core and attacks the film with dispirited ambiance sewn to dread.

Feast your eyes on the new limited-edition Blu-ray set of Ruth Paxton’s “A Banquet” from Second Sight films. The region B, PAL encoded UK boxset presents the film in 1080p widescreen 2.39:1 aspect ratio with a frame rate of 23-24 fps. David Liddel’s deep and encroaching cinematography of somber is highly effective in dulling out any kind of hope that might try to sneak in and with Liddel’s close-to-mid shots of macro-sized foods of all fresh and decaying varieties and in the middle of the more volatile struggles between mother and daughter opens up “A Banquet” to a plethora scene being uncomfortable moments. Details are sharp and colors are about as rich as Liddel can make them inside a grey-covered world. The English language set comes with two audio options: a DTS-HD 5.1 and a LPCM 2.0 stereo. DTS is clearly more robust through the various channels with a well-balanced mix. Other than a few outlier moments in the forest that disperse the dialogue in a naggingly boxy echo that doesn’t fit the environment, dialogue is discerningly clean and clear of obstructions and damage, as if there would be any on a digital record. Optional English subtitles are also available. Bonus material includes an interview with director Ruth Paxton Deformity of the Flesh on creating her first film during the height of the pandemic, an interview with star Jessica Alexander Improvised Exorcism in which she discusses her experience soup-to-nuts from hiring to completion, an interview with producer Leonora Darby Producing a Feast who notes about the difficulties of being a first-time producer in pandemic time, an interview with cinematographer David Liddel Dark Edges on how he creates “A Banquet’s” gloomy aura and creative shooting angles, the Q&A from Glasgow Film Festival with Paxton, Alexander, and Sienna Guillory, and a making of featurette. The limited-edition physical boxset is a sturdy vessel of beauty with a rigid slipcase with new artwork by Jen Davies, a 56-page soft cover picture and essay book with thoughtful examinations by novelist Alexandra Heller-Nicholas (“1000 Women in Horror”), film critic and writer Jennie Kermode, and Heather Wixsn, the managing editor of the Daily Dead. The contents round out with 6 collectable art cards. The film has a runtime of 97 minutes and is certified 15 for strong threat, language, suicide, self-harm, and drug misuse. “A Banquet” is lavishly cataclysmic as a divinely damning dish of a broken, dysfunctional family made to order by first time director Ruth Paxton with more to say.

Once You Let EVIL In, EVIL Will Never Let Go. “The Babadook” reviewed! (Second Sight Films / Blu-ray Screener)

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Stage set six years after a car accident involving the death of her husband, single mother Amelia and her difficult six-year-old son, Samuel, struggle to find a harmonious balance in their mother-son relationship.  Samuel’s outbursts and aggressive behaviors deflate the boy’s sometimes sweet nature that has oppressed Amelia into her wits end, alienating her from connecting with other people, even her own sister.  For days Amelia can’t sleep as the stress mounds and Samuel’s erratic temperament continues to worsen, especially when Samuel discovers a mysterious book from the shelf entitled Mister Babadook.  A book he can’t shake from his mind.  The frightening book, filled with graphic imagery and popups, tells of an ominous, dark figure eager to be let into their lives and when the Babadook presence lurks from the pages to reality, hiding in the darkest corners of their home and leeching on the strained anxiety and fear, Amelia and Samuel must rely on each other to wade out the Babadook’s horrible wretchedness only to realize that the way to stop from succumbing to the Babadook’s wrath is to face it head on. 

I can not believe that nearly 7 years has gone by and I have not once sat with a viewing of Jennifer Kent’s “The Babadook.”  Well, luckily for me, genre UK curator and distributor Second Sight Films is releasing the golden egg of limited edition 4K UHD/Bluray sets and was able to snag a screener for review!  The Australian film is an emotionally complex and enormously identifiable thriller that demonizes the post-death states of those dealing with loss and struggling to live on tasked with what’s typically a two person responsibility of mutual support and care.  Kent, who wrote and directed the film, expands upon her original 2005 short entitled “Monster,” by keeping the wrenching core that close in tighter and tighter on the mother and son while upping the visual and audio stylistic elements to make an immersive sympathetic undergo and not just an empathetic one.  “The Babadook” is a production of a conglomerate of companies, including Screen Australia, Causeway Films, Smoking Gun Productions, The South Australian Film Corporation, and Entertainment One and is produced by “Cargo’s” Kristina Ceyton and Jeff Harrison along with “The 13th House’s” Kristian Moliere.

Tackling these performances of a suppressed grief-stricken mother on the edge of snapping and a young boy growing up without a father and innocently oblivious to his own autistic like behavioral issues come with layers upon layers of character depth and, in my firm opinion, Essie Davis and Noah Wiseman crush the roles with a heartbreaking dynamic.   “The Matrix Reloaded” and “Revolutions” star Davis has a tangible wearied performance of a single parent with no one to turn to for help as your unconditional love for her troubled son runs on fumes, dangerously low without an outlet for support, encouragement, or relief.  Samuel has more familiarity in the genre as a relatively new trope, an autistic child that becomes intertwined with a wicked presence that has popped up more recent films, such as Jacob Chase’s “Come Play” and Greg McLean’s “The Darkness,”  as researches learn more about autism and society has been able to authenticate the condition over the years.  The debut feature performance from young Noah Wiseman can get under-your-skin being a restless busy body, a screeching backseat thrasher, and a poke and prod child in constant need of attention, but Noah is able to switch right into a sweet natured young boy with lots of wonderment and love for his mother.  Noah’s inventive, creative, and has a knack for self-preservation when dealing with a looming evil hungry for his fearful submission but because Noah is different from other children, he’s society labeled “disadvantage” is actually advantage, a tool for survival, that keeps him fixated on what’s important.  Focally attuned to just Amelia and Samuel in the story, the film barely registers the supporting cast that rounds out with Hayley McElhinney, Daniel Henshall, Barbara West, and Tim Purcell as the obscured Babadook.

Right from the opening scene, director Jennifer Kent instills a visually stylish premise geared to layer Amelia’s troubled mindset with an etherealized environment nightmare of her husband’s tragic death followed with the reality-grounding energy drain of raising single-handedly a difficult child and the rest of Amelia’s social bubble imploding without a sense of compassion.  From Samuel’s school to her own sister, Amelia is bombarded with delineation of Samuel’s behavior, riddling her psyche with shot after shot of disparaging remarks compounded upon a lingering pain that goes all the way back to her husband’s death nearly seven years ago and to which she subconsciously assigns Samuel blame.  Culminating to a head on Samuel’s birthday, the exact same date of her husband’s death, is a flood of weary and breakdown overtaking Amelia’s last bit of hope for her child and for herself.  This manifests an internalized darkness protruding out into the exterior in the form of Mister Babadook, the embodiment of grief pent up and let loose, feeding off Amelia’s exhaustion and malevolently possessing her being to want to do the worst possible thing overly stressed and repressed parents can do – take out their pain on their children.  Kent masterfully crafts symbolizing grief as an atypical presence of our normal selves.  The sheer amount of dimly lit negative space for the Babadook lying in waiting goes not to waste as when you think something is there, perhaps the Babadook, nothing actually materializes from the ominous shadows, but, in the realm of the story’s reality, that sensation of feeling a presence in the room with you is beyond a tauten tangibility and Kent, playing with that construct, adds stomach knotting audible cues, a guttural discordance, that narrow the eyes, pull the covers over the head, and have you wait with bated breath.

Let the “The Babadook” in with Second Sight Films’ 3-disc limited edition dual formatted, region free 4K UHD and region B Blu-ray, release arriving in the UK on June 21st.  The 4K presentation, an upscaled 2160p, is mastered by the original post production facility and presented in a 10-bit HDR10.  Both 4K and Blu-ray have an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 widescreen.  Audio options include the an English language DTS-HD master audio 5.1 and an English LPCM 2.0, complete with perplexing creature roaring soundbites from the original Resident Evil game on PlayStation.  Since only a screener disc was provided for this review, I am unable to comment on the exact quality of the release’s audio and video outputs; however, the rigid slipcase, with artwork from Peter Diamond, sheaths an abundance of special features, including a new audio commentary by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Josh Nelson, “This is My House!” – an interview with lead actress Essie Davis working with the cast and crew as well as her impressions of the story, “The Sister:  Interview with Hayley McElhinney” who talks about her character’s uncompassionate sibling role, and interviews with producers Kristina Ceyton and Kristian Moliere, editor Simon Njoo, production designer Alex Homes, composer Jud Kurzel, and book illustrator of Mister Babadook Alexander Juhasz.  The release also comes with Jennifer Kent’s inspirational short film, “Monster,” the making-off “”They Call Him Mister Babadook,” featurette about production design and set location in “There’s No Place Like Home:  Creating the House,” special effects talk about the sole stabbing scene, segment on stunt work, “Illustrating Evil: Creating the Book” that was illustrated by Alexander Juhasz, and a 150-page hardback book with brand new essays, an achieved interview with the director, concept illustrations, and behind the scenes photos  and collectors’ art cards that were not included with the screener.   Broodingly topical and harrowingly acted with perfection, “The Babadook” is the epithet for silent deadly threats, squirrelled and suppressed away by innate survival instincts only to be a subsonic explosion when the unstable psyche’s flashing point is sparked. 

When EVIL Strikes a Family Hard is When Fission Divides and Conquers. “Nuclear” reviewed! (101 Films / Digital Screener)

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Emma witnesses her troubled brother violently beating their mother while dragging her through the woods.  After he leaves, Emma and her injured mother escape to the countryside, driving through the night until coming upon a village house, next to what was once a large power plant that now sits vacant, to squat for a few days.  Emma comes into an encounter with a local boy a little older than herself with a free spirit for illegal extreme sports and taking dangerous risks to new heights.  What was intended to be an isolating refuge has turned into an alluring interest for Emma who admires the boy’s nomadic lifestyle, but while her mother’s physical injuries heal, a lingering trauma begins to emerge and Emma’s violent brother is also hot on their trail seeking them out.

Lately, our reviews have been on a stretch of psychological thrillers by first time feature film directors expressing a compelling narrative in the worst of situations; we’ve tackled the unhealthy family relations while battling acute mental illness with Joe Marcantonio’s “Kindred” and have taken a step back in time into the Cold War era with isolation tension and uncontrollable violent outbursts in the “Darkness in Apartment 45,” directed by Nicole Groton.  Well, we’re going for the hat trick with Catherine Linstrum debuting her written and directed psychological drama, “Nuclear,” that deals with the fallout of an estranged, threadbare family under the looming shadow of a defunct nuclear power plant, upending a whole new meaning for the term nuclear family.  Co-written with longtime collaborator, David-John Newman. “Nuclear” is a radiating co-production funded by the British Film Institute, Fields Park Media, and Ffilm Cymru Wales, and Great Point Media with Stella Nwimo serving as producer and Paul Higgins as executive producer.

Much of the narrative hinges on Emma, “Locke & Key’s” Emilia Jones, as a 14-year daughter at the center of her brother’s terrible misdeed that sparks a flight of escape to the country and then befriends an eccentric boy who pulls her toward a more grounded frame of mind despite his extreme antics.  The boy, charmingly played by “1917’s” George MacKay, is exactly the distraction Emilia needed while sheltering in refuge. MacKay boyish good looks accentuates his character’s overweening attitude that renders a thin layer of mysteriousness about him as the boy,, and when I say boy I mean young man not much older than Emilia, lives out of his van near the power plant and does backflips on a stone bridge. With such a small cast, one would assume the boy would have interactions with Emilia’s mother or brother, but that’s not the case as the film purposefully uses evasive maneuvers intended not to mingle the boy with Emilia’s mother, played by another Resident Evil Jill Valentine actress (see review of “Darkness in Apartment 45”) Sienna Guillory, and brother Oliver Coopersmith (“It’s Alive” remake), who are weaved into different stages of Emilia’s cerebral reactions to events that unfold unexpectedly. Floating through the story, like a supernatural Japanese house wife, is Noriko Sakura who, much like most of the other characters, plays that is unidentified, but Sakura’s wraithlike presence attaches itself to Emilia’s mother as a telltale sign that something isn’t quite right with the mother’s mental state.

“Nuclear,” in regards to the term, can be interpreted and dissected on many levels within the film; two possible, and perhaps the more obvious, espies are a nuclear family (as a pun on the phrase that denotes nuclear fission) that goes through a chain reaction of dependent events after a horrible event and the other would be the blatant power plant sitting idle and empty in the background, a symbol of a ruin that once harnessed power and gave energy to all and an allegory to this young teenager Emilia’s handling of the crime committed against her one and only protector- her mother. “Nuclear” is very much a young girl coming of age film that strikes chords of self-reliance and free choice while also strumming to disconnect from her parents and family, but she must face them first in order to really let go of the past. But does Catherine Lindstrum pull all the elements together? Lindstrum’s brain-teasing drama will ultimately confuse the general masses. Hell, “Nuclear” even confuses me by not sewing the last threads to connect the stitches of hecatomb effects as the principles players somber through an inexplicit tapestry that’s not clear, present, and often feels distant. The end result does evoke a sense of a coming of age story, but how that adolescent scores through tribulation is about opaque as murky water.

 

“Nuclear” is a twisting cerebral topography tale comprised of seasoned actors and promising young talent from the United Kingdom being distributed courtesy 101 Films, releasing digitally November 9th. Behind the camera is French cinematographer Crystel Fournier with a harsh realism that delivers a natural, but bleak tone full of shadows and gray contrast. Fournier captures and differentiates Emma’s solitude and isolation, especially when she, inadvertently, searches for answers through the motif of faith centric crosses and messages that surround her in and out of the cottage. Stephen McKeon’s score compliments Fournier’s atmo-melancholic with beautiful synth piano and Celtic akin violin compositions. There were no bonus features included with this digital screener and there were no bonus scenes during or after the credits. Don’t expect a mushroom cloud of edge-of-your-seat drama and psychological torment, “Nuclear” is the breadth of anticipation of the Cold War, never knowing what, when, and where to expect the bomb to drop in Catherine Linstrum’s debuting quandary.

EVIL’s Infectious Paranoia and Fear Spreads Rampant in “She Dies Tomorrow” reviewed! (Neon / Digital Screener)

Posted by Steven Lewis on


A despondent Amy is convinced she will die tomorrow. Wanting nothing more than to be useful in her death, she wishes for her skin to be sewn into a leather jacket, much like hardwood floors are elegantly fabricated from cut down trees. When her friend Jane checks in on her once alcoholic friend to ensure that Amy hasn’t fallen off the sober wagon, she brushes off Amy’s death talk as nonsensical, ruminating verbiage, but Amy’s intense convictions of imminent death spread like a contagion, serving up paranoia, fear, and hopelessness to every ear reached. Like wild fire, the prospect of death begins to infect a chain of people directly and indirectly connected to the source, Amy, and there’s no stopping the terror that looms knowing that’ll their fate is sealed in an ill-fated predestination that is seemingly coming tomorrow.

What if you knew you were going to die tomorrow? What sensations could possibly overwhelm your rationality? Are there differences in how we react between apparent death and actual death? These are all questions posed without much elucidation in Amy Seimetz’s 2020 sophomore full-feature film directorial, “She Dies Tomorrow,” coming eight years behind the writer-director’s 2012 debut road trip thriller, “Sun Don’t Shine.” Seinmetz, who has battled Xenomorph’s in Oliver Stone’s “Alien: Covenant,” tried to escaped animal masked killers in “You’re Next,” and burdened the supernatural forces of a Native American burial ground in the remake of Stephen King’s “Pet Sematary,” has wriggled her way in front of the camera with indie and big budget thrillers in the last decade, but has also found a small, but significant, auteur niche behind the camera as well, exploring the human dynamic in an avant garde veneer that involves the very core of what affects us all – death – in what Seinmetz describes it’s spread as an “ideological contagion” and how processing our determined for us death date can morbidly spill into what little life is left. “She Dies Tomorrow” is majorly self-funded project by Seinmetz, whose quoted that “Pet Sematary” paid for the film in full, and it gave the filmmaker nearly total autonomy in stylizing her vision of a dry, dark comedy with science fiction and horror elements that bridge the reality and fantasy gulf. Also, Rustic Film’s Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson also serve as producer. Moorhead and Benson, two filmmakers who I admire quite a lot, have proven to invest and create new and fresh otherworldly features, such as “The Endless” and “After Midnight.”

Returning to collaborate with Seinmetz is the director’s lead star from “Sun Don’t Shine,” Kate Lyn Sheil, portraying “She Dies Tomorrow’s” first despaired, Amy. The New Jersey born actress has built a career working with Seinmetz, co-starring alongside her in such as “You’re Next” and in television with “The Girlfriend Experience,” the latter being co-created by Seimetz, but Sheil has also established a wealthy career on her outside the Seinmetz bubble, landing a reoccurring role on the Kevin Spacey turmoiled Nextflix series, “House of Cards” and staying steadily busy with filmic roles over the last five years that has been continues even into the new decade. As Amy, Sheil decompresses Amy’s gloom upon the world in a manner of a stumbling, lost soul trying to find ways of being useful after death. Amy’s alcoholic issues are relatively on the backbunner, adding past strife to her character, but not really the centric focus of Amy’s communicable mellow anxiety. Each of the infected express their contract in a multitude of different ways. “Poltergeist” remake’s Jane Adams engrosses Jane’s fear around how she’ll die that then spreads to her on-screen brother, Chris Messina (“Birds of Prey”) and his snarky wife, Katie Aselton (“Black Rock”) who process as a natural parental fear and duty to comfort and control what they conceive as the inevitable. As the spate of infections increase, the fear lineage evokes honesty, regrets, sympathy, acceptance, and wonder from the support cast that includes Josh Lucas (“Session 9), Michelle Rodriguez (“Resident Evil”), Adam Wingard (director of “The Guest” and “You’re Next”), Jennifer Kim, Tunde Adebimpe, Olivia Taylor Dudley (“Dude Bro Party Massacre III”), Kentucker Audley (“V/H/S”), and Madison Calderon.

“She Dies Tomorrow” cultivates responses to the spreading of the ideological contagion rather than express just exactly how these people will die. Are they so sure they’ll die tomorrow to the point of inflicting self-harm? The story never really takes it that far to exhibit where the individuals, riddled with anxiety, their mortal status will land, whether it’s gratuitous gruesome or just nature taking course. Seinmetz makes light their becoming stricken with dying. While I mean in a more dry humor context, I also literally mean the filmmaker makes light, like the luminescence emitting from a rainbow firefly, glow upon characters’ faces inside Jay Keitel’s cinematography when death strikes their senses like an epiphany. The grim future washes away everything in their past, a key point of obsession honed in by the filmmaker that platforms the short span till death overshadows much, if not all, of our past achievements in life. The obsession is so strong and overwhelming that you, yourself, will start thinking about your own demise, whether it’ll be tomorrow or another 50 years from now, to which then sympathy for each of these characters will begin to set in and remain until the credits roll. “She Dies Tomorrow” seethes as a colorfully cosmic thanatophobia amplified by the current pandemic climate and common death anxiety, furthering Amy Seinmetz’s growth as a gifted filmmaker.

Neon presents the distribution of Amy Seinmetz’s “She Dies Tomorrow,” coming to drive-in theaters on July 31st and landing on video on demand the following week, August 7th. Since this was a digital screener of an upcoming move, there are no home video specifications to review, but Jay Keitel’s scenes are softly lit, down to Earth, and turn ethereal during the flashing of lights. The score by the composing duo, Mondo Boys, reteams Seinmetz with the soft, haunting melodies that can invoke a classical sadness and presage inside princely compositions that included interweaving Mozart’s Requiem into the mix. There were no bonus features included with this screener nor were there any bonus scenes during or after the credits. “She Dies Tomorrow” is a well-crafted, well-timed harrowing allegory on the psychological properties of coping in the face of death.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcMFjCPkP3M]

Buy the “She Dies Tomorrow” poster! Catch the film in Theaters and Video-On-Demand!