Sony has dropped the wicked new trailer for their upcoming “Don’t Breathe 2”. It’s a sequel to the surprisingly good 2016 film which was co-produced by Sam Raimi. That film introduced Norman Nordstrom, a blind Gulf War veteran with…shall we say…a dark side. In the first film his Detroit home was invaded by some delinquent thieves leading to some pretty violent results. This time around we get a deeper dive into Norman and (you guessed it) with more violent results.
Stephen Lang reprises his role as Nordstrom, not a hero or even an anti-hero. But as screenwriter Fede Alvarez puts it, Norman is an “anti-villain”. This time around he has taken in a young girl orphaned from a terrible house fire. Their quiet and private life is interrupted by kidnappers who seem to know all about Norman’s dark past. They take the girl forcing the blind “anti-villain” to leave the seclusion of his home to rescue his adopted daughter. Fans of the first film will have tons of questions, most notably how can they make a villainous character like the Norman from the earlier movie somehow sympathetic? I’m anxious to see.
“Don’t Breathe 2” hits theaters August 13th. Check out the trailer below and let me know if you’ll be seeing it or taking a pass.
Netflix launches its new horror trilogy with “Fear Street Part One: 1994”, the first film of three that are set to premiere on the streaming giant within weeks of each other. Based on a popular teen horror book series by R.L. Stine, “Fear Street” was originally slated for distribution by 20th Century Fox but COVID-19 delays led the Netflix sweeping in and grabbing the rights. Now they’re set to release the films a matter of days apart which makes for an interesting choice.
I haven’t read much on “Fear Street” so I’m (happily) going in blind. I’m anxious to see if the three movies set in very different time periods will also play around in different horror genres. “1994” is a slasher movie through and through. It’s filled with so many unlikable and insufferable teens that it will leave you questioning the future of human civilization. But that’s not the only genre trope “1994” leans into. It full-on embraces the nostalgia, sticking pretty close to the tried-and-true slasher formula and spending a lot of time setting up the movies that will follow.
Image courtesy of Netflix
Leigh Janiak directs “Part One” from a script she wrote with Phil Graziadei. To no surprise the story is set in 1994 and begins with an opening that borrows A LOT from Wes Craven’s “Scream”. It’s set in the small town of Shadyside that has earned the nickname “Killer Capital USA” due to its generations-long murder rate that would rival any crime-infested big city. Instead of Drew Barrymore it’s Maya Hawke who is terrorized by a knife-wielding murderer (this one in a skeleton mask) while closing up her shop in the town mall. Soon she along with several disposable bodies are laying in pools of blood. And so the festivities begin.
Enter the 90’s playlist where Bush, Cypress Hill, Sophie B. Hawkins, White Zombie, Radiohead, and the like are used to steadily remind us of what decade we’re in. Actually capturing the 90’s is one of the film’s biggest strength. Everything from landlines to flashy neon point to an era that was longer ago than it seems. It’s also a time when the well-received “Scream” briefly revived the slasher genre. It’s hard to say if “1994” is trying to do the same or if it’s just basking in the nostalgia of Craven’s considerably better film.
It turns out those opening murders are linked to Shadyside’s long history of bloodshed which will be explored in the next two films. It doesn’t make much sense yet, but it has something to do with a one-handed witch who cursed the town before being executed some 300 years ago. To sort it out we get a group of teen super-sleuths, none of them really fleshed out or given much identity other than a little surface detail. Deena (Kiana Madeira) is a moody outcast still smarting over a breakup with Samantha (Olivia Scott Welch). The movie tries to make their relationship matter but it’s really just a patched together token romance that stands out more for its cringy dialogue than its emotional resonance.
Image Courtesy of Netflix
Other key players are Kate (Julia Rehwald), a cheerleader and campus Ms. Popular who also happens to be a drug pusher and pharmaceuticals expert. There’s Simon (Fred Hechinger), a neurotic and consistently annoying cornball who is always amped up to max. And then we have Josh (Benjamin Flores Jr.), Deena’s brother and a bonafide geek with a big interest in the deadly history of his hometown that’s certain to come in handy. The five find themselves on the run from three resurrected crazies from Shadyside’s gruesome past who seem shamelessly inspired by horror movie killers we’ve seen before. Soon the town finds itself once again drenched in blood and we see it happen through some deliciously gory killings. Both the effects work and Janiak’s imagination is enough to impress any slasher fan.
But neither the story nor the characters have enough weight to make “1994” feel like anything other than a retro slasher knockoff. In many ways it plays a lot like “Goosebumps” with lots of gore and potty-mouths. Janiak throws in some dashes of high school melodrama, but none of it is very engaging and it doesn’t make the characters any more relatable. So we’re left watching them run around town with killers on their heels, the score blaring, and a few pieces being laid for the next films. It’s hard to know what to expect from them (tagged “1978” and “1666” respectfully). Hopefully something a little meatier and with better characters. Or maybe I’m expecting too much. Maybe this is all about the nostalgia in which case we should just sit back and watch Janiak play in her slasher movie sandbox. “Fear Street Part One: 1994” premieres today on Netflix.
Most of us have had no problem buying into Liam Neeson as an ex-special forces tough guy with a particular set of bone-cracking and head-shotting skills. So seeing the 69-year-old Irishman as a crusty North Dakota truck driver is easy-peasy. The new Netflix action thriller “The Ice Road” taps into much of what makes Neeson such a fun and engaging action star while also following that overused formula that makes many of his movies feel like more of the same.
“The Ice Road” thrusts Neeson into the real world of ice road trucking where drivers take 65,000 lb. vehicles over stretches of frozen lakes and rivers where ice is often less than 30 inches thick. Considered by some to be suicide missions, the truck drivers make essential cargo runs across these treacherous routes known as ice roads often with fatal outcomes. Written and directed by Jonathan Hensleigh, “The Ice Road” plugs Neeson into a story that’s set in this real and dangerous environment but full of familiar genre tropes.
Image Courtesy of Netflix
Neeson plays a seasoned trucker named Mike McCann who loses his job after standing up for his challenged PTSD suffering brother Gurty (Marcus Thomas). Needing work, he gets wind of a call for ice road drivers in Winnipeg. A serious methane explosion has caused a mine to collapse and the only hope for the miners trapped inside is if a wellhead can be delivered before they run out of oxygen. He’s hired by Jim Goldenrod (Laurence Fishburne) who scrambles to find capable drivers to accompany him on the “rescue mission” to Northern Manitoba.
Mike, Gurty who happens to be an ace mechanic, Jim, and an unruly local named Tantoo (Amber Midthunder) are joined by the mine company’s smarmy insurance rep Varnay (Benjamin Walker) and set out in a three-truck convoy. They’re employing what’s called “technical redundancy” which in this scenario means three trucks carrying the same cargo leave in hopes that at least one makes it to their destination. Told you this was dangerous business.
Image Courtesy of Netflix
The first half deals with the practical dangers of their journey both mechanically and environmentally. I makes for some pretty fascinating stuff. It’s the second half where things come unglued. A cartoonishly cold company scumbag played by Matt McCoy will go to great lengths to hide his indiscretions including sabotaging the convoy and leaving his miners to suffocate. So we end up with a back-end full of half-baked action that’s only entertaining in its absurdity. Meanwhile none of the characters are given much depth. We get a taste of Mike and Gurty but everyone else is just story filler. Even the always dependable Holt McCallany can’t make his mine supervisor character interesting.
“The Ice Road” is very much a middle-of-the-road thriller in Neeson’s catalog. It starts off teasing an interesting disaster flick but devolves into a sub-par action movie that can’t quite stay on the road. At the same time it can’t steer clear of predictability. You’ll see everything coming a mile away and from its earliest scenes you’ll figure out how it all ends. Still, even a middling Neeson film has its entertainment value and this one is no different. But there are so many ways this could have been better. “The Ice Road” is now streaming on Netflix.
After being thrust into the public eye in 2007 with Michael Bay’s “Transformers”, Megan Fox quickly found herself known more for her sudden sex-symbol status than the movies she was making. After two abysmal “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” films, the Tennessee-born actress took a few years off, doing a little television but nothing on the big screen. She returned in 2019 and has since appeared in a wild variety of mostly straight-to-VOD movies. She also has several interesting projects on the way.
Fox’s latest “Till Death” is a genre mashup that can best be described as a psychological action survival horror thriller. It’s directed by S.K. Dale from a script penned by Jamie Cairney. They hand Fox a character who requires a two-sided performance, one that’s full of quiet brittle emotion and the other which is much grittier and physically demanding. The movie starts as an ugly marriage drama but ends in a far more violent and blood-splattered place.
Image Courtesy of Screen Media Films
Fox plays Emma, the wife of prominent New York City attorney Mark Webster (Eoin Macken). We first meet her as she’s ending an extramarital affair with one of her husband’s colleagues. We learn that her relationship with Mark has soured in large part due to his controlling and emotionally abusive behavior. There isn’t much nuance to Mark. He’s a slug from the start, frequently pointing out how she doesn’t meet his expectations and constantly reminding her of how she “used to be”. When she shows up at his office in a black dress rather than his favorite red one, he takes her back home to change before going out to dinner.
After a rather uncomfortable meal, Mark surprises Emma with a getaway to a remote lake house to celebrate their 11-year anniversary. He goes all out – candles, rose petals, and a pledge to be a better husband. Following an evening of champagne and romance, Emma wakes up to an alarming discovery. She finds herself in bed handcuffed to Mark’s blood-soaked corpse. I won’t go into the how and why, but from there a good chunk of the movie is Emma dragging her dead husband‘s body around the house trying to break free from him (the metaphor is pretty obvious). This whole part is a little grisly, at times unexpectedly clever, even darkly funny on occasion.
Image Courtesy of Screen Media Films
But then we get another twist when two brothers, one violently linked to Emma’s past, show up at the lake house anxious to get their hands on a bag of diamonds stashed inside. Up to this point the movie had been on shaky yet entertaining ground. But here is where it falls apart, not in an unbearably bad way. But any hint of plausibility pretty much vanishes as the violent grudge-bearing Bobby Ray (Callen Mulvey) and his timid younger brother (Jack Roth) search for Emma in and around the snowy property. It plays out as a series of near-miss encounters, some just too silly and convenient to buy.
It all leads to a predictable action showdown that’s no more easier to believe. Through it all Fox’s performance rarely gets above room temperature. It’s not that she’s bad. In fact the grit she brings to certain scenes is what makes them work. But there are scenes where her character needs more than the small range of emotion she brings. It all equals a flawed movie that still manages to be well-paced, digestible, hit-and-run entertainment. But you can also see hints of a better thriller that we unfortunately didn’t get. “Till Death” opens July 2nd.
The much delayed, highly anticipated, and weirdly titled “Halloween Kills” is finally set for its big screen release. This is the twelfth film in the “Halloween” franchise and a sequel to the 2018 reboot of sorts. It falls under the Blumhouse banner and sees the return of director David Gordon Green and of course Jamie Lee Curtis reprising her role as Laurie Strode. The newest trailer definitely sets the film’s tone and it looks to be fully embracing its slasher roots.
Green and his co-writers Danny McBride and Scott Teems pick things up right where the last movie left off. Gruesome killer Michael Myers is trapped in the basement of Laurie’s burning house. “Let it burn” she screams. Unfortunately for her (and everyone else in town), the Haddonfield fire department are quick and efficient responders. In doing their duty they let loose the murderous Michael to once again hack his way through town. Judging by the trailer fans of the franchise should be getting exactly what they’re itching for.
“Halloween Kills” hits theaters this October. Check out the trailer below and let me know if you’ll be seeing it or taking a pass.
For the next few days things will be pretty mellow around here as I’m off for a week-long beach vacation with my wife and kiddos. I still have a few things planned to post this week but for the most part it’s rest and relaxation.
Keith & the Movies 