Lots of kids like to play with their food, but the main character in “Abigail,” a new vampire film now playing in theatres, takes it to a new level.
The story begins with a plan to kidnap Abigail (Alisha Weir), the twelve-year-old ballerina daughter of a well-known underworld boss. Ringleader Lambert (Giancarlo Esposito) makes it sound simple. He directs his ragtag team, including ex-cop Frank (Dan Stevens), hacker Sammy (Kathryn Newton), medic Joey (Melissa Barrera), musclebound enforcer Peter (Kevin Durand), ex-Marine Rickles (William Catlett) and get-away driver Dean (Angus Cloud in his last completed role), to contain Abigail and babysit her for twenty-four hours until a sizable ransom is paid.
How hard can that be?
With little effort, they pick up the unassuming looking rich girl, and secret her away to a secluded mansion where she is blindfolded and tied to a bed for safe keeping.
Things take a twist, however, when it’s revealed that Abigail is a bloodsucking fiend, quick to kill and drop a witty one-liner.
“I’m sorry about what’s gonna happen to you,” she tells one of her soon-to-be victims.
Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, collectively known as Radio Silence, blow the plasma budget, filling the screen with gallons of bloody goo and arterial discharge. In its last half it is a splatter fest that provides the satisfying guts and gore horror fan expect.
But, in its own limited way, it’s also a family drama, a story of lost, lonely people, looking for approval from loved ones. That element gives the movie a nice grace note, but the focus here is popcorn thrills and chills.
As in “Ready or Not,” a Radio Silence movie from 2019, “Abigail” is largely set in a grand old gothic mansion. Trapped like rats in a labyrinth, the kidnappers flail helplessly, looking for, and finding, danger around every darkened corner.
Against that setting, Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett stage several memorable scenes. In one, a newly-turned vampire acts as a puppet, performing an undead dance under Abigail’s telepathic control. It’s bizarre, kinda cool and diabolically funny.
The film’s beating heart, or rather, unbeating heart, is Weir, a kinetic presence who blends ballet with bloody vampiric attacks. Her shift from helpless child to two-hundred-year-old bloodsucker is the film’s coup de grâce.
“Abigail” goes on a little too long, puts a bit too much space between the gory set pieces and gives some characters the short shrift, but ultimately delivers a gory good time for genre fans.
Rare is the movie that can ride the line between scatological and sublime, absurdist and acute. The deeply weird “Sasquatch Sunset,” starring Riley Keough and Jesse Eisenberg, is that movie. A portrait of how a Sasquatch tribe reacts to the encroaching modern world, it plays like “Quest for Fire” with poop jokes.
The movie follows a family of Sasquatches, the mythical human-like creatures played by Eisenberg, Keough, Nathan Zellner and Christophe Zajac-Denec, foe a year as they navigate life deep in a Pacific Northwest forest. It’s a slice-of-life look at them getting it on Bigfoot-style, foraging for food, throwing feces at crows as they eat the corpse of one of their friends, and making art out of twigs. Oh, and there’s grunting. Lots of grunting. And a pooping montage.
Narrator-less and dialogue free, the first part of “Sasquatch Sunset” feels like a nature documentary that focusses on Bigfoot mating and bathroom habits. It wanders, seemingly pointlessly and is sophomoric fun for a time, but just as the novelty of seeing movie stars draped in Sasquatch pelts begins to wear thin, directors David and Nathan Zellner turn up the sincerity.
When the family comes across a campsite, the modern world makes itself known. A boom box blares the Erasure song “Love to Hate You” as they learn the poignant message that they are not alone in the world. From that point on their lives become a confused quest for survival as they encounter things they cannot control.
If nothing else, “Sasquatch Sunset” is unfalteringly dedicated to its premise. It has more of a focus on feces than your average National Geographic doc, but Keough and Eisenberg dive in (big) foot first, delivering what will surely be the strangest, but most committed performances of their careers.
You will believe a Sasquatch can throw their poop. But will you care? Depends on your commitment to the premise. It is both poignant and repugnant, ridiculous and genuine. It will not be for everyone. The slow pacing and the sheer audacity of the idea will separate the movie’s friends from foes, but even skeptics will have to admit, making and releasing a Bigfoot movie this odd in 2024 is no small feat.
Based on a true story, “Irena’s Vow,” a new heartfelt World War II drama now playing in theatres, is a portrait of extraordinary courage in the face of tragedy.
“Yellowjackets’s” co-star Sophie Nélisse is 19-year-old Polish Catholic nurse Irena Gut Opdyke.
Forced into service by the Nazis, first at a sewing factory, then as a housekeeper for Nazi officer Major Edward Rügemer (Dougray Scott), she witnesses an act of unspeakable cruelty that changes her life. Shocked and appalled, Irena makes a vow to help the dozen Jewish tailors she befriended at the factory.
Her plan is audacious. She arranges to secret the tailors away to the basement of the German commandant’s house. If they are discovered, it would mean a death sentence, but, Irena’s hopes, who would look for them in the coal cellar of a Nazi officer?
For two years the twelve men and women live in the basement, emerging only when Rügemer is out of town. Question is, how long can they stay undetected?
“Irena’s Vow” is headlined by a committed and empathetic performance from Nélisse. As Irena improvises a daring, and years long, scheme to rescue her former co-workers, the scenario occasionally challenges credulity, but Nélisse makes sure that Irena’s compassion, bravery and intellect are present and ground the compelling story.
“Irena’s Vow” has nicely detailed period elements, and shines a light on an important hero’s story, but lacks true suspense. The story echoes the historical record, but relies on too many melodramatic moments to be truly memorable.
On the Saturday April 13, 2024 edition of the Richard Crouse Show we’ll meet Phil Heath. Fans of bodybuilding will recognize his name as a seven-time Mr. Olympia winner, having won the competition every year from 2011 to 2017. His incredible athletic career was slowed by health concerns, but his strength of character and intensity is captured in a new film co-produced by Dwayne Johnson, “Breaking Olympia: The Phil Heath Story,” which is now available on the SuperChannel. It’s the untold story of how he battled back from injury in his quest to become the greatest of all.
Later on we’ll meet Tassie Cameron. Tassie is an award-winning screenwriter who was the head writer and executive producer on the series Rookie Blue and creator of the show Pretty Hard Cases. Today we’re talking about her latest gig, as the producer of “Law and Order Toronto: Criminal Intent.” We talk about the show, and what it takes to quote, unquote, play a dead body on the legendary franchise.
Each week on the nationally syndicated Richard Crouse Show, Canada’s most recognized movie critic brings together some of the most interesting and opinionated people from the movies, television and music to put a fresh spin on news from the world of lifestyle and pop-culture. Tune into this show to hear in-depth interviews with actors and directors, to find out what’s going on behind the scenes of your favourite shows and movies and get a new take on current trends. Recent guests include Chris Pratt, Elvis Costello, Baz Luhrmann, Martin Freeman, David Cronenberg, Mayim Bialik, The Kids in the Hall and many more!
All iHeartRadio Canada stations are available across Canada via live stream on iHeartRadio.caand the iHeartRadio Canada app. iHeartRadio Canada stations are also connected through Alexa, Siri, and Google Home smart speakers.
I hosted a special IMAX screening of “Civil War,” a new antiwar film. set in a dystopian future America, in which a team of military-embedded journalists race against time to reach Washington, D.C., before rebel factions descend upon the White House. AP calls it the “year’s most explosive movie,” while the Toronto Star calls it “the year’s most divisive movie.”
Director Alex garland joined me after the screening for a twenty minute Q&A where we discussed why he set the film in the United States, made the bold statement of blowing up the Lincoln Memorial and much more.
“Civil War,” a new, near-future vision of dystopia from director Alex Garland, now playing in theatres, is an emotional and intellectual experience that plays like a stark prediction of what could happen if division and hate are allowed to run unchecked.
At the film’s beginning the President of the United States (Nick Offerman) predicts victory for the American government over the separatist “Western Forces” led by Texas and California. In reality, the Second American Civil War is waning as the rebellious W.F. cut a path to Washington, while the “Florida Alliance” leaves a bloody mark on other parts of the country.
How bad is it? In the movie’s sole light moment, to Canadian audiences at least, it’s revealed that the Canadian dollar is more valuable, and more in demand than USD. That’s how bad the situation is.
In the midst of this, journalists capture the story on film and in words. Kirsten Dunst is Lee, a seasoned photojournalist, who with writer Joel (Wagner Moura) has an eye on getting the biggest scoop of the conflict, an interview with the President.
“Interviewing him is the only story left,” she says.
As Lee and Joel, along with veteran New York Times journalist Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson) and ambitious combat photographer Jesse (Cailee Spaeny), set off on the 857-mile journey from New York to D.C., the full impact of the war’s destruction, on property and people, becomes clear.
“Every time I survived a war zone, I thought I was sending a warning home, ‘Don’t do this,’” Lee says, “but here we are.”
There are no monsters or supernatural aspects in “Civil War,” but make no mistake, this is a horror film. The horrors of war are detailed in a visceral and chaotic way—the rat-a-tat-tat of gun battles is deafening, while the cinema verité style shots of carnage and bodies left abandoned to rot in the sun stick in the imagination—but it is the idea of a societal collapse that haunts. “No one is giving orders,” says a soldier. “Someone is trying to kill us, and we’re trying to kill them.”
Garland uses thrilling, in-your-face imagery that brings to mind everything from classic war films to the handheld coverage of the Capitol attack of January 6, 2021 to paint a portrait of a country in combat with itself.
The director, who also wrote the script, is decidedly non-partisan in his approach to the story, emphasizing the cruelty of the movement, and the actions of the extremist militias, not the politics. In this version of civil war, the population are divided by ideology. Friends turn on friends, state on state, and wearing an orange “Press” Kevlar vest won’t keep the journalists safe. “They shoot journalists on sight at the capitol,” says Sammy. The ravages of this war, set against ordinary backdrops, like an abandoned Christmas theme park, or a deserted highway, are unsettling in a profound, unnerving way.
The jarring visuals—an opening protest scene is a jaw-dropper—enhanced by a pulsating, anxiety inducing electronic soundtrack are almost overwhelming, but underscore the importance of the journalists who risk their lives to record history in real time. The occasionally shocking situations and images—the final shot is a doozy, provocative and bound to be controversial—are powerful reminders of the risks undertaken by reporters on the search for the truth.
That risk factor, at a time when journalism is under fire, is highlighted in “Civil War,” but takes a backseat to Garland’s bravura, pulse-racing filmmaking.
“Damaged,” a new crime drama starring Samuel L Jackson and Vincent Cassel, and now streaming on VOD, is a feature that feels like episodic television, right up to a cliffhanger-y ending that should come with a “To Be Continued” end credit.
When Edinburgh, Scottish police discover a body killed in a ritualistic fashion—the victim’s arms and legs are dismembered and left in a cross formation—they bring in Dan Lawson, a brilliant Chicago police detective with a drinking problem, who investigated a series of murders with the same MO years before.
“Kills five seemingly random people in Chicago,” says a Captain Ford (Mark Holden), “then lays low for six years. Do you think it’s a copycat?”
“We never published any images of how the body parts were laid out,” Lawson says. “I want in on this.”
Upon arrival, he’s told the Scottish police have never seen a case as violent as the gruesome remains left at the crime scene. But Lawson has. Five years before this same serial killer murdered his girlfriend.
As Lawson and Scottish Detective Chief Inspector Glen Boyd (Gianni Capaldi) chase down clues, the red herrings and twists keep the killer just out of reach. By the time Lawson’s former partner Bravo (Cassel), now a crime writer who designs security systems on the side, shows up, there are more bodies, including one that makes the case even more personal.
“Damaged” is a pastiche of serial killer movies with a mystical “DaVinci Code” flavor and some very charming Scottish accents. Despite the extreme situation—cops working on the murder of their loved ones—the movie follows familiar police procedural beats.
Jackson is reliably good, and it is fun to hear him do a toned-down riff on his “Pulp Fiction” Ezekiel 25:17 speech, even though for the rest of the movie he mostly recites lines straight out of Police Speak 101. Lines like “I didn’t come here to sit on the sidelines,” or “What is wrong with this picture?” bring a generic feel that permeates the rest of the film.
Truth is, there’s nothing wrong, exactly, with “Damaged.” First-time feature director Terry McDonough, has a ton of episodic television under his belt, shows like “Killing Eve,” “Better Call Saul” and “Breaking Bad” and knows how to keep the action moving along, but there’s nothing here that feels really fresh.
“Damaged” has star power and a twisty-turny plot, but feels like a small screen diversion.
“Sting,” a new creature feature from director Kiah “Nekrotronic” Roache-Turner, is about a young girl named Charlotte and a spider, but “Charlotte’s Web” this ain’t.
Alyla Browne is precocious 12-year-old Charlotte. Ignored by her parents, saddled with an annoying baby brother and a cruel aunt, she escapes the tedium of everyday life by shimmying through the duct work of her Brooklyn apartment complex.
Her exploration of the creaky old building brings her to a locked room, where she finds a tiny spider living in a dollhouse. As she adopts the creature, names him Sting but what she doesn’t know is that the arachnid is no ordinary spider. Brought to earth inside a meteor fragment, the eight-legged alien grows rapidly, spinning a web of terror as it preys on the residents of Charlotte’s apartment building.
“I always say, ‘Never make friends with anything with more than four legs,’” says exterminator Frank (Jermaine Fowler). “A spider only knows two things, that’s eat and kill.”
As Sting wreaks havoc on her neighbors, Charlotte takes it upon herself, with some unlikely help, to squash the bug.
Arachnophobes beware! “Sting” contains enough eight-legged horror to make your skin crawl. Much of the action happens in the shadows, but the spider attacks are graphic and have an “Alien” vibe. A spider crawling into a person’s mouth will never not be terrifying.
The focus on pure horror is blurred somewhat by the introduction of characters like Erik (Danny Kim), the monotone, awkward guy Charlotte turns to for help, who dilute the story, distracting from the horror and Charlotte’s fractured family.
The family dynamics provide the film’s anchor, supplying the high stakes that keep the audience invested in the action. The oddball characters are fun, but it is the emotion of Charlotte’s reclaimed relationship with her family, forged in the fire of a full-blown spider attack, that gives the movie its heart.
“Sting” has a few laughs and some spidery scares, but it works best when it allows the two-legged stars to shine.
On the Saturday April 5, 2024 edition of the Richard Crouse Show we’ll meet Marlo Mckenzie and Jonathan Parker, the filmmakers behind a cool new documentary called “Carol Doda Topless at the Condor.”
The documentary, now playing in theatres, paints a picture of an accidental trailblazer whose provocative performances transformed not only San Francisco’s North Bay neighborhood, but the national nightclub business.
Then, we get to know Holly Gramazio. She is a writer, game designer and curator from Adelaide, currently based in London. Today we’ll talk about her debut novel, The Husbands, which is poised to be a best seller. It’s the story of Lauren, who returns home to her apartment one evening and finds her husband there. Problem is she is not married. While she is trying to figure out who this person is, he goes to the attic to change the light bulb. But what comes down is ANOTHER HUSBAND .
Each week on the nationally syndicated Richard Crouse Show, Canada’s most recognized movie critic brings together some of the most interesting and opinionated people from the movies, television and music to put a fresh spin on news from the world of lifestyle and pop-culture. Tune into this show to hear in-depth interviews with actors and directors, to find out what’s going on behind the scenes of your favourite shows and movies and get a new take on current trends. Recent guests include Chris Pratt, Elvis Costello, Baz Luhrmann, Martin Freeman, David Cronenberg, Mayim Bialik, The Kids in the Hall and many more!
All iHeartRadio Canada stations are available across Canada via live stream on iHeartRadio.caand the iHeartRadio Canada app. iHeartRadio Canada stations are also connected through Alexa, Siri, and Google Home smart speakers.
