Posts Tagged ‘Amanda Crew’

FREAKS: 3 STARS. “humanity on display makes up for the lack of eye candy.”

“Freaks,” a new sci-fi horror film starring seven-year-old Lexy Kolker and eighty-three-year-old Bruce Dern, is a multi-layered head-scratcher that wonders what it might be like to be a helicopter parent to one of the X-Men.

Seven-year-old Chloe (Kolker) is kept a prisoner in the rundown suburban home she shares with her father Henry Lewis (Emile Hirsch). But this is not “Room” or any other confinement drama. This is the story of a father whose daughter is gifted in a way that will make her a target if she is discovered. Henry has tried to shield her from all this. “I never wanted the world to turn her into a freak,” he says. “She’s just a girl.” Father and daughter are blessed (or cursed depending on your point of view) with the ability to read minds, make themselves invisible and generate protective, clear bubbles.

Chloe doesn’t know or understand the extent of her powers and as long as she is kept separate from the world, may never know. Her only connections to outside world are ghostly visions (or are they real?) of her late mother Mary (Amanda Crew) and the ice cream man, Mr. Snowcone (Bruce Dern) who seems to know a lot about her.

She has been trained to lie about her identity but soon she begins to wonder what lies beyond the walls of their home. What follows is an extreme case of stranger danger.

“Freaks” takes its time. It allows the viewer to reach their own conclusions, and then, more often than not, shatters them. The only thing that is for sure is that Chloe longs for her mother, a feeling expertly demonstrated by Kolker in a performance that gives the movie the heart it needs to make us care for the characters and the situations. The low fi effects don’t distract in the way a larger budget might have afforded but the humanity on display makes up for the lack of eye candy.

Good sci fiction is rarely exactly about what we see on screen. In that sense “Freaks” isn’t about Chloe’s powers, it’s about being different from those around you, about persecution, about feeling unwanted. There are feelings that many can relate to and making them universal, accessible and by times even exciting, is the film’s greatest strength.

ISABELLE: 2 ½ STARS. “the horror is subtle but effective.”

Becoming a new parent is scary, filled with unknowns. Will the baby be healthy and happy? What kind of parent will I be? A new film called “Isabelle,” starring Amanda Crew and Adam Brody, imagines the unimaginable, the unknowable psychological torment that follows a miscarriage.

Larissa (Crew) and Matt (Brody) are a happy young couple. Expecting a baby, they move to a new house to start their new life as parents. Next door is a stately old home, occupied by the schoolmarm-ish Ann Pelway (Sheila McCarthy) and eerie daughter Isabelle (Zoë Belkin), who is usually only seen peering through a second story window. After an encounter with Ann on the street Larissa is rushed to the hospital. Though clinically dead for a minute Larissa survives. Sadly, the child does not. Once at home Larissa is plagued by guilt and depression. She hears her dead child crying in the other room and is tormented by Isabelle’s seemingly unbreaking gaze.

After a brief set up director Rob Heydon sets a fast pace for the brisk 80-minute movie, diving right into the psychological terror. Much of the horror is subtle but effective as we learn about why Ann and Isabelle seem so otherworldly and follow Larissa on her terrifying journey. Midway through, however, “Isabelle” becomes cluttered with plot devices; there’s a hospital priest (Dayo Ade), demonic possession, a spiritual healer (Michael Miranda), Devil worship and more. More is sometimes less, and in this case the film feels rushed, over-stuffed with every trope out of the Supernatural Drama Handbook.

“Isabelle” does have its pleasures. McCarthy is a standout as Ann, a pious woman tormented by the past, and Brody and Crew who humanize the horror of the aftermath of a tragedy.