Richard sits in on the CKTB Niagara in the Morning morning show with host Tim Denis to talk the new movies coming to theatres. Find out whether Richard has a burning love for Baz Luhrmann’s biopic “Elvis,” if he hangs up on “The Black Phone” and if he was frozen out by “Slash/Back.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Richard sits in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with host Bill Carroll to talk the new movies coming to theatres including Baz Luhrmann’s all shook up biopic “Elvis,” the telephonic terror of “The Black Phone” and the Arctic thrills of “Slash/Back.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Richard joins NewsTalk 1010 host David Cooper on the coast-to-coast-to-coast late night “Showgram” to play the game “Did Richard Crouse Like This?” This week we talk about Baz Luhrmann’s rockin’ and rollin’ biopic “Elvis,” the masked horror of “The Black Phone” and the Arctic thrills of “Slash/Back.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Ethan Hawke appears to have entered the bad guy phase of his movie career. After a popular turn as religious zealot and cult leader Arthur Harrow on Disney+’s “Moon Knight,” he returns to haunt your dreams as a masked serial killer nicknamed The Grabber in “The Black Phone,” now playing in theatres.
Adapted from a short story of the same name by acclaimed author, and Stephen King’s son, Joe Hill, and set in 1978, “The Black Phone” centers on shy baseball pitcher Finney (Mason Thames, who resembles a teen Patrick Swayze).
Bullied at school and ostracized by his classmates, things aren’t much better at home where his abusive, alcoholic father (Jeremy Davies) doesn’t seem to have a clue how to be a parent to him or his potty-mouthed sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw).
In town, kids are disappearing, lured away by The Grabber, a serial killer who approaches his prey dressed as a macabre children’s entertainer and a question. “Wanna see a magic trick?”
Finney becomes the sixth victim when The Grabber knocks him unconscious and whisks the boy away to a soundproof basement with an antique black phone on the wall. Although disconnected, Finney soon discovers he can communicate with The Grabber’s previous victims on the phone. In the dungeon the voices of the dead attempt to help him escape, while sister Gwen looks for clues in a series of very vivid psychic dreams. “Please, please,” she says, “let the dreams be true.”
“The Black Phone” is an intense, efficiently told horror story of captivity, dread and friendship. Finney spends most of the film trapped in the Grabber’s basement, relying on ingenuity, a little help from some otherworldly entities and an untapped reserve of courage to survive.
The creepy supernatural element aside, it’s the real-life terror of the very earthbound Grabber that shocks. With no motive other than satisfying is own twisted desires, he is the specter of mindless malevolence. Hawke, performing through a mask for 99.9% of the film, projects pure evil. Most of his dialogue might sound almost innocent on the page, but add a high-pitched affectation and expert delivery, and a line like, “I will never make you do anything you won’t like,” becomes, “I will never make you do anything you won’t… like.” That pause is where the menace is, and Hawke plays those goose-bump raising moments beautifully.
Thames hands in an authentic and resource performance, but it is McGraw as the firebrand Gwen who steals the show. She wouldn’t have been out of place in any number of 80s Amblin flicks. She s resilient, has a way with a cuss word and brings the heart and soul to her dysfunctional family unit.
Director Scott Derrickson faithfully recreates an inviting 1970s backdrop, painted with a mix of teen concerns, like bullies and the cute girl in lab class, edged with a darker, more violent hue. It may have been a simpler time, but Derrickson isn’t all about nostalgia. You might still get beaten up on the way home from school, or worse. It feels authentic, and when the real horror enters the picture, it hits hard.
“The Black Phone” is an unsettling horror thriller that doesn’t rely on gore, just heaps of tension, suspense, atmospherics and fright that doesn’t rely on a supernatural entity to terrify.
Richard sits in on the CTV NewsChannel with host Jennifer Burke to have a look at the new movies coming to VOD, streaming services and theatres including the family drama “Minari” (Premium digital and on-demand), the supernatural thriller “The Vigil” (Select theatres and VOD), the high school crime story “The Sinners” (VOD) and the courtroom drama “The Last Vermeer” (VOD).
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard sits in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with host Bill Carroll to talk the new movies coming to theatres, VOD and streaming services including the family drama “Minari” (Premium digital and on-demand), the supernatural thriller “The Vigil” (Select theatres and VOD), the high school crime story “The Sinners” (VOD) and the courtroom drama “The Last Vermeer” (VOD).
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
“The Vigil,” the first film from novelist-turned-director Keith Thomas and now available on VOD, is low fi movie with high fi horror.
When we first meet Yakov (Dave Davis) he is at a support group for Orthodox Jews adapting to life outside of Brooklyn, New York’s Hasidic community. Still adjusting to his new life, he’s unemployed, struggling to make ends meet. When his friend Reb Shulem (Menashe Lustig) approaches him with the offer of a job, he has no choice but to accept. For one night he will act as a Shomer, a guardian in the Jewish tradition, and watch over the dead body of Holocaust survivor Mr. Litvak (Ronald Cohen) until the time of burial.
Arriving at the house for the overnight stay, he’s greeted by Mrs. Litvak (Lynn Cohen) who warns him to leave. After Reb explains that she is suffering from Alzheimer’s, Yakov begins his solemn duty, watching over the shrouded Mr. Litvak.
Soon, as lights begin to flicker Yakov thinks he sees something scurry across the floor. But the true terror awaits as he uncovers a video detailing the ancient demon, the Mazzik, that attached itself to Mr. Litvak when he left Buchenwald.
“The Vigil” is a horror film that trades in the supernatural as much as the psychological. The shocks are born from director Thomas’s effective use of jump scares and things that go bump in the night, but the real terror here is intangible.
It is the reliving of memories, as Mr. Litvak says in the video, “the looking backwards” at the anti-Semitic horrors that shaped all their lives. We learn of the fate of Mrs. Livak’s father in the Kiev pogroms of 1919, Mr. Livak’s treatment at the hands of the Nazi’s and the recent violence that prompted Yakov to leave his faith. They are, as Mrs. Litvak says, “broken by memories,” the inescapable weight that they carry.
“The Vigil” brings the horror out of the corners of the mind, and just possibly offers an avenue for Yakov’s catharsis and return to his faith, but not before presenting a deeply unsettling story.
Richard speaks to “CTV News at Six” anchor Andria Case about television and movies to watch during the pandemic including “Dads,” a new doc directed by Bryce Dallas Howard, just in time for Father’s Day, the new Kevin Bacon thriller “You Should Have Left” and the music documentary series “Laurel Canyon.”
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 38:51)
Richard and “CP24 Breakfast” host Bill Coulter have a look at some special streaming opportunities and television shows to help fill the hours during the pandemic, including “The Muppets take Manhattan,” streaming for free on ctv.ca, the latest Stay at Home Cinema, the riveting drama “I May Destroy You” on HBO, the documentary “Ali & Cavett: The tale of the Tapes” on HBO and Kevin Bacon’s latest thriller “You Should Have Left,” now on VOD.
Watch the whole thing HERE!
