Richard joins CP24 to have a look at new movies coming to VOD, streaming services and theatres including “No Time to Die,” the return of James Bond to the big screen, the dystopian “Night Raiders” and the Netflix slasher film “There’s Someone Inside Your House.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard and CTV NewsChannel morning show host Lois Lee chat up the weekend’s big releases including “No Time to Die,” the return of James Bond to the big screen, the dystopian “Night Raiders” and the Netflix slasher film “There’s Someone Inside Your House.”
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 “No Time to Die,” the much anticipated return of James Bond to the big screen, the “Sopranos” prequel “The Many Saints of Newark,” the dystopian “Night Raiders” and the Netflix slasher film “There’s Someone Inside Your House.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
“There’s Someone Inside Your House,” now streaming on Netflix, throws a Halloween assortment of slasher movie standards together, like good looking teenagers with dark secrets and a masked killer, to tell a story that falls somewhere on the Creep-O-Meter between “Scream” and “I Know What You Did Last Summer.”
Based on the Stephanie Perkins young adult novel, the story focusses on Makani Young (Sydney Park), a Hawaiian teenager who moved to a small Nebraska town to live with her grandmother after a traumatic incident at her old school.
At Osbourne High she is just one of a large group of kids harbouring shady pasts. The bloody, brutal murder of football star Jackson (Markian Tarasiuk) rocks the school, revealing a masked killer on the loose who exposes his victim’s darkest moments before offing them. And get this, the killer wears a 3-D printed mask of his victim while they do the dirty deed.
Creepy, right?
As the bodies pile up, Makani and her pals—imagine a modern day “Breakfast Club” comprised of astrophysicist Darby (Jesse LaTourette), a pill-popping smart aleck (Anthony Timpano), Zach, the son of a local farming magnate (Dale Whibley), Makani’s ex (Théodore Pellerin) and the kind-hearted Alex (Asjha Cooper)—investigate, hoping to end the killing spree before the killer ends their lives.
“There’s Someone Inside Your House” starts strong with the gruesome killing of the football star. It establishes the movie’s “the bloodier the better” attitude but while the killings continue, director Patrick Brice is more interested in the shocking secrets of the characters than their deaths. Sure, there are horror movie settings like corn mazes and long, dimly lit corridors, but Brice wants us to see the darkness of the characters, which is often hidden just under well-manicured surfaces. A perky high-school student council president, for instance, is revealed to be a closeted racist in a rather spectacular manner.
But, despite the sociological look at the lives and deaths of its characters, the film may have worked better, however, if we cared more about the people on screen. There are reveals, but Brice doesn’t allow the teen relationships to blossom, or the characters to create individual personalities. We get to know about Makani and her life, but her friends are all out of Central Casting. “You have no idea who I am,” the killer says when revealed. “You don’t even know who you are.” And, unfortunately, neither does the audience.
Brice attempts to drag “There’s Someone Inside Your House’s” throwback genre into the present with a mix of old-school thrills, modern cultural norms and a killer who takes the term “cancel culture” a bit too seriously, but never quite gets there.
Richard’s “Canada AM” reviews for talking teddy bear comedy “Ted 2,” the hero dog movie “Max” and “The Overnight” with host Jeff Hutcheson.
Watch the whole thing HERE!
“The Overnight” is a smart, insightful but most of all, very uncomfortable film.
The story begins when Emily (Taylor Schilling) and Alex (Adam Scott), a married coupled transplanted from Seattle to Los Angeles for work, meet Kurt (Jason Schwartzman), an outgoing man who chats them up in a local park. Their kids hit it off so Kurt invites the couple over for pizzas and wine with his wife Charlotte (Judith Godreche). Eager to make friends, Emilia and Alex accept and enter a world ripe with sexual tension, voyeurism, skinny-dipping and self confession. What begins as a dinner party quickly erupts into part drug and drink binge, part therapy session. “This is California,” says the slightly naïve Adam, “maybe this is what dinner parties are like here.”
On the surface “The Overnight” is simply about that moment when, as they say in the film, the party turns from freewheeling California vibe to swinger vibe but that doesn’t do the story justice. That’s the Cole’s Notes version of the story but the actual tale is much more interesting.
This is a parlour show where most of the action takes place in one place. Think “Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?” In this case the bulk the story happens in Kurt and Charlotte’s upscale home as the older, more jaded couple wile away the hours, breaking down Emily and Adam’s inhibitions while revealing their own martial issues and weaknesses. It’s a power struggle with a constantly shifting dynamic that turns into a guessing game as to what, exactly, is going on. It is that ambiguity that propels the action forward.
Good casting keeps things interesting—Schwartzman is smarmy perfection—and at just 80 minutes “The Overnight” is the right length for a cat and mouse story. Any longer and this story of sexual frustration might have become frustrating, but director Patrick Brice brings the story to an end before the anxiety of the situation becomes too uncomfortable for the audience.
