“Ready or Not” is a called a dark comedy horror thriller film. There are some horrifying scenes and some unlikely comedic moments, so I guess that’s an apt description.  It’s written and directed by a bunch of people with long complicated names, but I guess I will forge ahead and mention them anyway.  The screenplay is written by Guy Busick and R. Christopher Murphy.  Okay, those two aren’t too bad.  But this thing apparently needed two directors, and they are Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett.  The cast includes Samara Weaving, Andie McDowell, Adam Brody, Mark O’Brien, and Henry Czerny.

Weaving plays a brand new bride marrying into a family who has built their considerable wealth by creating and marketing various board games for lots of years. The Le Domas family success comes with a peculiar cost.  After the wedding, a rigid tradition demands a game to be played.  Weaving’s character, Grace, happens to draw the card that has them play Hide and Seek, however this ends up being a more lethal version of the game that what is usually played.

There is a fair number of gruesome deaths with exotic weapons of the past.  There is a great looking spooky house to run around in.  The characters are appropriately weird and fairly compelling. The bride is expectedly gorgeous and fairly resourceful in between moments of terror.

It’s kind of horrific and a little stupid, but still strangely enjoyable for those of us with a taste of the macabre.  Grace proves herself to be a scrappy little woman in between her moments of understandable panic. Weaving’s performance is pretty convincing, however that is not surprising since her father is a pretty impressive actor named Hugo Weaving.

There are a few twists and turns that are a little unexpected.  Now, there are a few problems in the logic of the script, but that’s to be expected given the genre.  I probably enjoyed this film a little more than it deserves, but I am not expecting many awards are going to be thrown its way.

 

“Secret Obsession” is a thriller that recently premiered on Netflix and was written by Kraig Wenman and Peter Sullivan.  Sullivan is also the director.  Brenda Song, Mike Vogel, and Dennis Haysbert star in this lackluster cinematic effort.

The premise is a little absurd, but the genre tends to be up my alley so I thought I could find some enjoyment here.  Haysbert is really the only one who had the more interesting character of a detective coping with the grief having a daughter kidnapped, however that is not the main plot.

A young woman is run down by a car after fleeing an attack and wakes up with several significant holes in her memory.  A man is there claiming to be her husband, however it does not take long for the viewer to suspect this fellow is not to be trusted.

This is a mess.  It’s not the worst mess I have seen, but there isn’t much to justify a lot of attention being given to this movie.  The performances weren’t completely hopeless, but some of the reasoning behind the actions doesn’t hold up very well.  It’s really the writing that needs a second thought here.  I also am not sure that amnesia works quite the way that’s depicted here, although that condition does manifest itself in a variety of ways in real life, so maybe…

Anyway, Haysbert has a presence that tends to help a film more than hurts, but I wish he was utilized a little more with a better writer.  Mike Vogel could be kind of chilling at times as the doting psychotic, but we have seen this kind of obsessive crazy too many times before.  He’s not a bad actor, but there just wasn’t much for him to do to stand out.

I guess this isn’t totally unwatchable, but there are much better options out there.

“The Vanishing Man” is a new Sherlock Holmes novel written by Philip Purser-Hallard and is the latest in the range from Titan Books.

I get a little excited when I see an unfamiliar name contribute to the Sherlock Holmes pastiches because I hope that someone will do something other than have him debunk some supernatural event like a Scooby-Doo episode.  However, the pattern continues. In this installment, a challenge is made to a scientific society studying the potential for telekinesis.  A man apparently vanishes before the eyes of several people in a locked room and is said to have transported himself to the planet Venus.  Sherlock Holmes is engaged alongside the stalwart Dr. John Watson to verify the veracity of the miracle or determine if something shady is afoot.  Of course, one of the society members ends up in the morgue which makes the case a bit more intriguing for Holmes.

The novel is fine.  Purser-Hallard is a competent writer and does well enough with capturing most of Holmes’ most obvious traits.  There is plenty of witty rudeness to go along with the stupefying deductions.  My frustration is that it continues this never-ending trend of having Holmes encounter something that may or may not be supernatural, and he usually has to debunk some extraordinary event or deal with otherworldly realms.  Arthur Conan Doyle did not have his creation deal with the occult or some super-duper villainous magician every week.   Anyway, I did manage to stay pretty well engaged, but I am a Sherlock fan through and through so I am an easy mark.  In spite of the extraordinary events depicted, the story itself was just more of the same from this range of pastiche Holmes works.

Next up, Agatha Christie introduces readers to “The Unexpected Guest”.  This was actually a play she had written that was adapted into a novel by Charles Osborn.

“The Jigsaw War” is a Doctor Who audio drama from Big Finish Productions and is an episode of the Companion Chronicles series.  Frazer Hines reprises his role of Jamie McCrimmon and is joined by Dominic Mafham, who is portraying an interrogator known as Moran.  However throughout the episode there is what appears to be a perplexing role reversal.  Eddie Robson comes up with a pretty creative conundrum for the Scottish lad in this particular script. This is one of the few episodes of this range that relies solely on dialogue.

Jamie is being interrogated about the whereabouts of the Doctor by Moran, however he is a little startled to find that events keep shifting dramatically every few moments in which he finds himself as the interrogator at times.  There is a rebellion of some sort in the background as well.  A being known as Side emerges and explains that Jamie can escape but he is experiencing this period out of sequence.  If Jamie can identify the proper sequence of how his part in this conflict is supposed to unfold, he is free to leave. This is Doctor Who and an Eddie Robson script, so it can’t really be that simple, can it? Well, of course not.

The Doctor’s appearance is a little limited in this one, however Frazer Hines makes the most of it with his wonderful take on the late Patrick Troughton’s iteration.  Hines has spoken before about how much he loves doing the impressions of his deceased friend as the Second Doctor, and it still shows here.

It seems an ambitious storyline for an audio play, but the performances of both actors are strong enough for me to forgive the more confusing aspects of this story.  It’s a bit of a strange story for this particular era, however I don’t usually mind the effort to break away from the supposed assigned type of story that would typically appear in the television era.  Jamie is still the same old familiar Jamie, although he has to rely on a type of analytical thinking that is often a struggle for someone of his background.  Not that there is anything wrong with being a Scottish Highlander from the eighteenth century, but Jamie has to work a little harder than many of the other Doctor’s companions sometimes, but hey…that’s why he is so loved by the fans.

Although I was able to get some enjoyment on the initial play of this episode, I suspect the more profound realizations will strike the right chords on future replays, of which I expect there will be plenty.

“An Alien Werewolf in London” is a Doctor Who audio play presented by Big Finish Productions.  Alan Barnes wrote the story the concludes the trilogy where the Seventh Doctor is accompanied by the space traveling werewolf known as Mags.  Sylvester McCoy and Jessica Martin are reunited with Sophie Aldred as Ace.  Jacob Collins Levy and Lara Lemon are included in the guest cast.

Mags is still with the Doctor when the TARDIS receives a summons from an old friend who is back on Earth during the 1990’s.  Ace has become aware of an extraterrestrial   being held captive and needs some help in liberating the visitor.  Mags and the Doctor soon learn that they are not the only visitors from the stars as an ancient dark presence known to the Time Lords also emerge from the shadows.

As ominous and overdramatic as all this seems, it actually is a fairly light-hearted episode in the series all things considered. It’s not exactly a slapstick, but it does showcase McCoy’s comedic skills quite effectively.  He sort of plays a dual role as well since the captured alien is a shapeshifter.

It was a pretty engaging episode, but it does run into some obstacles in the presentation that seems typical of audio dramas.  There are some flashback scenes that are sometimes a little hard to follow.  Not all the of the action sequences are easy to imagine, at least not in the first listen.

One thing that caught my ear was the distinctive musical score.  I don’t notice the score usually, but this one caught my attention for some reason and in a good way.

Barnes is typically a solid writer and this one is no exception.  It was pretty fun to see some aspects of the Seventh Doctor that are explored infrequently in this series.

 

“Pickup On South Street” is a Cold War era film noir which was released initially in 1953.  Samuel Fuller is the screenwriter and director for this 20th Century Fox entry.  The film stars Richard Widmark as master pickpocket Skip McCoy who manages to slip a bit of microfilm of great interest to the FBI from the purse of a woman named Candy, who has a rather dubious history of her own.  Jean Peters, Thelma Ritter, and Richard Kiley are included in the cast.

This film takes the idea of rooting out Communist spies among the most common of New York denizens.  Apparently, this film rubbed J. Edgar Hoover the wrong way due to the FBI not being portrayed in the best light, and McCoy trying to make a buck off the microfilm despite efforts to appeal to his patriotism.  McCoy could probably be considered the more loathsome of protagonist, however he is certainly one of the most interesting.  Thelma Ritter plays some kind of professional confidential informant whose loyalties go with the highest bidder for her information.  She apparently was nominated for an Academy Award that year and deservedly so, in my humble.

The ending seemed a little rushed, however this was a pretty good film overall.  It had some pretty engaging characters with sharp dialogue.  McCoy still manages to be a likeable protagonist if a pretty untrustworthy one.  The relationships between the characters were pretty tense and unpredictable throughout the unfolding of the story.

Samuel Fuller had a pretty immense body of work in Hollywood, but I was not too familiar with him until recently.  I enjoyed “Pickup on South Street” quite a bit, and I am somewhat nonplussed that I had no real familiarity with it until I stumbled across it on TCM.

“Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” is a horror movie directed by Andre Ovredal and is based on a series children’s books by Alvin Schwartz.  Dan and Kevin Hageman wrote the screenplay with Guillermo Del Toro contributing to the story idea alongside Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan.  The cast includes of younger unknown actors such as Zoe Colletti, Michael Garza, and Gabriel Rush.  Dean Norris and Gil Bellows were the only performers I kind of recognized.

So the films takes the audience back to 1968 Pennsylvania in a small town where there is a haunted house with the troubling legend of the Bellows family.  The spirit of Sarah Bellows is said to tell frightening stories to children, however the stories she tells come to life.   She was held captive by her own family who allowed her to be accused of poisoning children.  A young girl named Stella is the lead protagonist as she and her friends go into the long abandoned and dilapidated house, finding the book of stories written in blood.  Sarah was said to have been kept in a locked room behind a bookcase. Anyway, Stella finds the book and pretty soon, the town bully has disappeared after being menaced by a spooky scarecrow.

I have often been consistently critical of this genre for its predictability and shallow characters, however this piece is almost an exception.  Some of the plot threads and cast of characters were rather familiar, but not overly so.  I don’t remember hearing much about the series of books by Alvin Schwartz, so I could enjoy the film without making the comparisons to the source material and grumbling about the artistic liberties.

Del Toro having involvement probably helped quite a bit in the way of originality in the imagery and overall story.  Del Toro is one of those movie makers that tends to pique my curiosity with unerring consistency.

Although once again, as predicted, I would hesitate to consider this a major feat of cinematic ingenuity, it turned out to be a pretty entertaining afternoon diversion, which is a major victory for the horror genre.  Most of the other entries in this area of cinematic entertainment tend to lead to all too familiar disappointment.

“An Unkindness of Ghosts” is a science fiction novel by Rivers Solomon which also serves as some sort of social commentary.

It takes place aboard a colony ship called the Matilda.  Aster Grey lives in the bowels of this ship where she is an amateur botanists and physician’s assistant among those that deemed different or undesirable.  The ship is supposed to symbolize the southern plantations of the past.  There is brutal oppression aplenty in this one.

Solomon is apparently transgender and prefers to use the pronoun of “they”.  Of course, this is designed to reflect how people are discriminated against due to skin color and sexual preference and place it in a futuristic setting that is supposed to be unique.

Solomon isn’t necessarily a terrible writer, however I just struggled with really caring about the characters or their plight.  Of course, if anyone wonders why I put myself through trying to read something that failed to maintain any significant interest, I am in a book club which chose this book, and I am somewhat obsessive about trying to finish whatever I start reading.  Anyway, this one probably wasn’t my cup of tea so I won’t go out of my way to read another of Rivers’ works.

I will be returning to more familiar literary territory for me with a new Sherlock Holmes novel by Philip Purser-Hallard in which the great sleuth tries to ascertain the whereabouts of “The Vanishing Man”.

“The Kitchen” is a crime drama written and directed by Andrea Berloff.  It is adapted from a comic miniseries from DC Vertigo written by Ollie Masters and Ming Doyle.  A trio of pretty talented actresses star in this one.  Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish, and Elizabeth Moss play three wives whose husbands are in the Irish mob of the region of New York known as Hell’s Kitchen.  The three men get pinched by the feds and sent in prison leaving an opportunity for the women to start running the show.

This is another film with a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to enjoyment.  First of all, the casting was very well done.  I am not sure I remember seeing Haddish in a dramatic role before, however she was quite compelling in her role as Ruby O’Carroll, the only black woman in the midst of the Irish mob.  McCarthy plays the brains of this outfit, Kathy Brennan while the part of Claire Walsh falls to Elizabeth Moss.  Claire probably makes the most startling transformation from a meek, abused woman to the most lethal of the three.

The problems seem to come from the writing decisions though.  The road to their success did not seem all that convincing though.  The story takes place in 1978, so the chauvinism these three would have faced would probably have been even more formidable.  Of course, I get that there is only about two hours to tell this tale, but I think the unfolding of this could have been presented a little better.

A couple of the guys in the cast gave some pretty interesting performances themselves.  An Irish actor named Domhnall Gleeson was pretty good as hitman Gabriel O’Malley.  He and Claire fall in love and seal it with a couple of kills.  Bill Camp was also pretty fascinating as an Italian crime boss who goes into business with Kathy and company.

In spite of some misgivings about the writing here, the cast makes this quite watchable and fairly enjoyable even.  The setting was quite convincing with a pretty catchy 70’s soundtrack.  It was a flawed movie but a pretty interesting one.

 

“The Thing From Another World” is a science fiction thriller first released in 1951. It has a little bit of a perplexing credit billing when one reads up on it, but I will stick with the essentials for the purposes of this blog.  So the main producer appears to be Howard Hawks alongside Edward Lasker with Christian Nyby as the credited directed, but there appears to be some dispute there.  Charles Lederer is the credited screenwriter with Hawks and someone named Ben Hecht as uncredited writers.  The cast seems to be more straight forward in that Margaret Sheridan, Kenneth Tobey, and Robert Cornthwaite are part of it with James Arness as “The Thing”.

I should also mention that the movie is based on a novella entitled “Who Goes There?” by John W. Campbell Jr. which was published in 1938.  So an alien creature stalking researchers in arctic climates has quite a history.

This film wasn’t quite as scary as the 1982 adaptation directed by John Carpenter, however it’s still worth a look.

The main characters were generally likeable and interesting.  Tobey plays an amicable Air Force captain who ends up heading up the defense of this research outpost after the Thing is awakened from its icy slumber in a foul mood.  The visual effects were quite good for this era.  The prosthetic make-up worn by Arness was appropriately creepy.

The performances were pretty good for the most part.  The characters seem to have a genuine bantering relationship during the calmer moments.  Sheridan and Tobey play characters with a romantic history and they are quite enjoyable in their scenes together as they consider rekindling their relationship.  Cornthwaite plays the scientist who has a more sympathetic take on the alien’s violent reaction.  He plays the typical obsessed researcher who ends up being a bit of a hindrance during the chaos.

The film has a rep for being one of the better science fiction experiences of the 1950’s, and I see little reason to dispute that.