Duncan Skiles’ 2018 “killer thriller” The Clovehitch Killer is a real pearl on Netflix, a fantastic find that was recommended via one of Stephen King’s Tweets (he also gave it a glowing review). It’s based on the crimes of the BTK Killer (Dennis Rader), a serial killer who would break into homes and then bind and torture and kill (hence the name) whole families. He disappeared into the guise of dedicated suburban family father for decades before being uncovered. While the serial killer tropes and stories have been seemingly milked to death, this film takes the frightening idea of the potential serial killer father and asks the question, “What if your father was in fact a serial killer?,” and I think it ultimately succeeds in breathing new life into the serial killer story and offering fresh perspectives and questions. And there are plot twists and red herrings galore, particularly how the serial killer manipulates everyone around him, and the audience is also manipulated by their psychopathy and total lack of empathy (we also believe the lies and question our own intentions and antics).

The story is told from the POV of teen Tyler Burnside (Charlie Plummer), who lives with his devout Christian family somewhere in the Bible belt and whose father is scout team leader and an involved and cherished member of the community. When he discovers weird bondage photos in his father’s truck, he starts to question who his father really is, and the film gradually reveals increasing evidence that he may actually be the Clovehitch Killer who has been butchering women throughout the years, although there is ambiguity as to whether it is really him. Tyler’s revelations are met with backlash and ostracization from the Christian community, particularly his Christian “friends” and love interests, who are quite shallow and judgemental despite their seemingly Christian upbringing (they see him as a BDSM fetishist and thus a pervert within their conservative mindset), which is perhaps an indictment of conservative Christian followers in these small suburban communities in general. The POV is effective in building suspense, particularly since the findings and clues are revelations for both Tyler and the viewer, and the limitlessness to the serial killer’s depravity through these reveals is particularly shocking. As a viewer, I think we are endlessly drawn to this idea of social deviation, the idea that someone could be so detached from human feeling and emotion for another human being, especially within the parameters of our mundane suburban lives, and this really draws us in.

Tyler’s vegetative uncle Rudy is blamed for the crime, but one wonders if perhaps he was put into that state to be culpable for the crimes. Again, that ambiguity is employed to create tension. Tyler is joined by Kassi (Madisen Beaty, who notably played one of the Manson girls in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood – now that I think about it, most of the actresses who play Manson girls in that film [see also Sydney Sweeney, Maya Hawke, Dakota Fanning, Samantha Robinson, etc.] are smoking hot and are all really famous now!), a sexy neighbour who is also super interested in serial killers (and has read all of the case files!). They naturally team up to find out whodunnit, and the horror of discovery (or what they will discover, or what if they’re caught) lingers with us, and well as Tyler’s moral confusion (should I do the right thing? What is the right thing to do? Protect my family or tell the truth?). Tyler’s father Don (Dylan McDermott, The Perks of Being a Wallflower) is excellent as the possible serial killer, and the likeness between him and Rader is uncanny. I really enjoyed seeing Samantha Mathis (Broken Arrow, Pump Up the Volume, Ferngully, and also River Phoenix’s last girlfriend) as Tyler’s mother as well, although I didn’t recognize her at first. I shouldn’t ramble on too much longer for fear of spoiling too much, but The Clovehitch Killer is a great little thriller/horror movie on Netflix, and I encourage everyone to watch it.

Forgive me legions of 80’s leg-warmer enthusiasts for I have committed cardinal sins of my generation. I never swayed to the Truffle Shuffle. I never shouted “Goonies for Life.” I never sought a treasure hunt with a deformed behemoth. As a point of fact, I never felt a kinship with The Goonies despite my age bracket. Movies in which an entourage of kids are quippy and unfathomably resourceful  have always rubbed me raw (Monster Squad being the exception to the rule). Due to my bias, I was adamant not to succumb to the hype of Stranger Things Season 1. Now Halloween is upon us and I’m swallowing my pride and jumping into the deep end of the mythos and hoping to stay afloat. Did Season 2 work on a neophyte like myself?

Stranger Things clearly is a pastiche of pop culture phenomena from my youth (Ghostbusters costumes, 8-bit arcade games, etc.) and therefore, it should appeal directly to my sense of nostalgia. For a newcomer to the series, I’m not drinking the Koolaid on the synthesizer score. Yes, it is highly reminiscent of John Carpenter and his keyboard melodies, but it lacks an indelible swell and by the third variation, it reveals itself to be a rather monotonous copycat of those themes.

I’ve been enlightened enough through the rumor mill and spoiler-heavy comic-con trolls on the backstory of Season 1 and because of that, I wasn’t baffled by the telepathic-caper opening in Pittsburgh circa 1984. It’s a pretty shrewd thrust back into the numerically coded experiments. However, the episode dovetails precipitously once Dusty (Gaten Matarazzo) is pouting for loss quarters. The lisp is an irritating, manufactured gimmick in lieu of characterization and his bratty attitude doesn’t endear him much more.

The Duffer Brothers certainly grew up during this period of time and are virtually lockstep with it which is occasionally admirable and occasionally depressing since they can’t seem to transcend it. There is a difference between homage as a starting point and homage as a parboiled end game. When Devo’s “Whip It” begins, it transports us back but, unlike Ready Player One where the golden-age references were plot pivots, the Dragon’s Lair game and other allusions are basically gauzy window dressing.

I’ve always enjoyed stories about trauma-coping or how characters deal with the aftermath of climactic turning points in their lives ala The French Connection II. Because of that, Chief Jim Hooper (David Harbour) and his surly, post-bender demeanor towards reports of psionic abilities, is a splendid launching pad for me. Although after the otherworldly circumstances of Season 1, how can he still be skeptical?

The DeGrassi Junior High love triangle is a snore. The sexist awakening of puberty within the boys towards the misanthropic “new girl” MADMAX is hackneyed (“Girls don’t play video games.”). The adult-centric disbelief and evaluations of Will (the speech about being a “freak” over being normal, is didactic and stale) are oversimplified to show his elders to be short-sighted and parochial. Essentially everything is a retread of a bygone era. Maybe I’m an eternal pessimist but I found Season 2 to be more kitschy and derivative than inspired.

Rating: 2.25 out of 5

I, for one, was a casual fan of the film adaptation of the same name. Jim Carrey was capably madcap to be a chameleon thespian and the yarn was suitably morose and devilishly dark. The TV series aim to correct the condensation of the first movie by translating the first four books and expanding onto the others in later seasons.

“Just look away” are some of the lyrics to the theme song and it’s definitely apropos with the book’s disclaimer against fairy-tale expectations. Part One: A Bad Beginning is directed by Barry Sonnenfeld who has some dexterity with macabre gallows humor after ‘The Addams Family’. Patrick Warburton is our narrator for this litany of woes. His poker-faced line delivery reminds one of a gumshoe along the lines of Joe Friday.

The trolley system along the storytelling stops is crafted like kaleidoscopic pop-art. in lesser hands, this soft reboot would just be a superfluous renewal of IP but Sonnenfeld makes this newest version vitally antidotal to the felicity of most cross-generational fare. The Baudelaire family, for instance, are much more consolidated here than the 2004 rendition.

The appeal of the books as well as this is their relentlessly pessimistic tone. K. Todd Freeman doesn’t knead the fact that the Baudelaires’ parents “perished in a fire” as he succinctly spits it out with an infectious smile on his face. The gags are also more knee-slapping with the puppet of the newborn filing a sandstone down with her mouth.

Neil Patrick Harris is more malevolent and gorgonized than the impish Jim Carrey who scuttled too close to his rubber-face shtick. It’s unadulterated fun to watch Harris summon his nasty streak (“The stove is a bit like a servant. You have to whack it sometimes to get it to work.”). Weirdly, he was one the asterisk that worried me beforehand but he acquits himself tremendously in the snarling role. He even belts his own musical number (“It’s the Count”) with churlish, hilarious talentlessness.

Whereas the previous attempt was too cramped, Netflix and Sonnenfeld dilate the source material to its fullest potential. It’s a whimsically sorrowful, richly wry expansion of Daniel Handler’s eternally grey world (neighbors such as Justice Strauss (Joan Cusack) were truncated due to that film’s already episodic, disjointed structure).

Rating: 4.25 out of 5

Werner Herzog’s latest 2016 documentary Into the Inferno is a fiery delight. It comes nearly in tandem with his also excellent Lo and Behold! Reveries of a Connected World, which is about the wonders and horrors of Internet culture in our growing technological age. Into the Inferno, which he filmed in collaboration with Cambridge University volcanologist Clive Oppenheimer (Werner was inspired by his book Eruptions that Shook the World), is a poetic and cinematic look at active volcanoes across the world.

This is not Herzog’s first foray into the realm of active volcanoes – in fact, his 1977 documentary La Soufrière (I wrote a review of it here) also looked at an island in the Caribbean where a volcanic eruption was evident (interestingly, however, it decided not to erupt at the very last minute). Like his new documentary, however, it wasn’t just about the erupting volcano, although they certainly play a major role – it’s also about the people who live with volcanoes, who stay behind when the volcanoes are erupting, people who come to terms with the possibility of death in their everyday life, and more. I think Herzog’s exploration of these stories, such as the romantic yet ill-fated story of the French volcanologist couple whose beautiful yet daring vision for volcanology and cinema unfortunately ended in death.

I also really enjoyed the opportunities that the documentary opened up, such as the rare look at North Korean culture, which seems tangential but works really well for the film. It sprouted as a collaborative effort between Cambridge University and North Korean volcanologists, and it is a unique opportunity to hear from these people firsthand and better understand their beliefs and philosophies. Herzog and Oppenheimer travel from Iceland to North Korea to Indonesia and beyond, and it is a fascinating journey.

Herzog’s shots are absolutely compelling, featuring lava erupting from within the bowels of the earth – strangely ambivalent in its alluring yellow-orange natural beauty yet highly dangerous at the same time. Herzog’s juxtaposition between opera and the volcanic shots works really well – depictions of the unattainable, how our lives are meaningless compared to the powers of the earth. Film works so well as a medium here, depicting the volcanoes as an artist would open a canvas to great effect, and I think it really covers all the bases. I would have loved to have seen more focus on supervolcanoes, but I guess I can’t be too picky – this is great stuff.

Like other Herzog documentaries, one of its great attractions is also the stories of the people. I was particularly drawn to one community who worshipped an American soldier who was destined to return with great gifts and resources for all the people. One of the villagers comments that one day, there will be a volcano that consumes everything and us all, despite everything we have achieved, or so we think. In addition, one of my favourite Herzog quotes comes at the end of the film when he describes the volcano in its awesome beauty:

‘It is a fire that wants to burst forth and it could not care less about what we are doing up here. This boiling mass is just monumentally indifferent to scurrying roaches, retarded reptiles and vapid humans alike.’

I was really drawn to this quote, our inevitable infallibility and the sheer supremacy of the volcano, forever building and churning between us in its own terms. Still, we cannot help but be drawn to these forces of power and try to make sense of what we see. Perhaps the threat of an imminent volcano will bring us all together in solidarity and we will see the best qualities that humanity and animals have to offer. I like to dream, and I like to hope. Into the Inferno is full of beautiful scenes, great stories, and it’s just about everything you could want with a documentary. It’s on Netflix and I highly recommend it.

Special thanks to Toron for a great watch!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoSmPkWmG4k]

Last year’s debut of Netflix’s Daredevil deflated me considerably. I thought there were too many pulled punches in terms of choreography, it focused too heavily on the law firm and Daredevil was a dull central character. Between Daredevil and Jessica Jones, I was more pleasantly surprised by the latter but I still think Daredevil possesses a lot of promise for the brooding grittiness that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has shied away from and the DC universe is embracing. For season 2, I decided to give capsule reviews of each of the 13 episodes in increments rather than a broad overview.

Bang

Already Season 2 is really nailing the sooty ambience of Hell’s Kitchen. It still has the Lexi Alexander aesthetic of yellow-and-neon-green lighting but when a broadcaster says there are record high temperatures, you can feel the beads of sweat. The laying-the-pipe origin story is over and now we can watch Daredevil in full breadth. I really liked his sadistic smile after the opening execution in the church. Drew Goddard is no longer the showrunner and this could explain the notable improvements. Foggy and Murdock have a more amiable chemistry than before. Now that Foggy has full knowledge of his alter-ego, it seemed tenable that Foggy would recognize a bleeding gash on Murdock, give his friendly advice on how he shouldn’t circumvent the law and not be completely schmaltzy about it (“You’re an asshole. If I can’t stop you, at least I can help.”).

Lip service is given to how the law firm is nearing insolvency and I prefer the shift to not being a case-of-the-week show anymore. The ripple effect of Wilson Fisk gives rise to the Irish mob again and thankfully, the leader doesn’t speak in a Lucky Charms accent. When he is toasting their reign, an ultraviolent bloodbath ensues with shattered Guinness bottles, critical neck wounds and many bodily perforations. It is a satisfyingly ruthless introduction to The Punisher a.k.a. Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal). He is an ethereal avenging angel who isn’t shown at first which builds into his fearsome reputation. It’s the Jaws principle and it works wonders.

One area I wish was resolved is the coy love triangle between Murdock, Foggy and Karen. It’s just delaying the inevitable chasm. Also, at the writer’s tabula rasa disposal is Murdock’s wider range of abilities such as his superhuman hearing when he narrows in on a detective’s analysis of a murder casualty’s Kevlar vest. Also, he might have heightened senses but he can’t multitask which explains why he misses the one informant’s testimony over the nearby coroner diagnosis. The frozen meatlocker scene shows that Castle is an unrepentant one-man army who is joylessly dismantling his enemies.

Again, his unhurried disarming of a hospital guard to toss his gun into a trash can is bravura example of his machismo. The adrenaline-surging fight on the rooftop between Daredevil and The Punisher beautifully distinguishes their styles: Daredevi moves with feline reflexes and effortless speed while The Punisher is constantly looking for the killshot with his rifle and sidearm. Overall, a gargantuan step up for the series.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Dogs to a Gunfight

“Daredevil does it and the city cheers like we won the World Series.” Daredevil’s rising popularity in the urban areas can cause a new breed of copycats which are called “devil-worshippers”. A sensational expansion on Daredevil’s impact on rampant vigilantism. Murdock’s gradual, temporary desensitization to being deaf is a character highlight and illustrates how detrimental Castle can be. The witness-protection option is more closely affiliated to the main storyline which is why it doesn’t digress too mightily. Unlike Thomas Jane and Ray Stevenson before him, Bernthal isn’t beholden exclusively to the thousand-yard stare and he encapsulates Castle’s peevish, irritable side. Even while negotiating with the pawnbroker, he looks like a lion with a thorn in his paw. It’s always appetizing to watch Daredevil spar with The Punisher so soon after their last confrontation but status reports and panicked faces looking at a monitor from spectators is a bit hackneyed at this point. It was fresh in ‘Aliens’, revamped in ‘Predator 2’, now it’s a cheap cliche.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

New York’s Finest

Is it just me or does the district attorney remind everyone of Vanessa Williams? Finally, the two caped crusaders are in a volatile face-off. Like a yeoman, Bernthal does “what’s required” and his military-grade weaponry is the perfect distillation of Marvel’s antihero- enough firepower to tip the scale of justice. While he is chained up, Charlie Cox’s accent is really incontrovertible. It shouldn’t be redubbed or reshot. Castle’s philosophy is that he is a soldier who doesn’t parade himself as something different for casual comforts. It’s not a moonlighting hobby where he removes the uniform. It’s a shrewd discourse where Punisher pointedly states “we don’t get to pick the things that fix us” and that his personal tragedy could only be becalm by his campaign of terror.

It’s a bit hypocritical that Daredevil says he doesn’t enjoy his bloodthirsty escapades though. I wish Rosario Dawson wasn’t subjugated to the scrappy side character and she was more pivotal than being an emergency room attendant. At a certain point, the ethical disagreements between the two duellists begin to sound like derivative sound bytes (“You hit ’em, they get back up. I hit ’em, they stay down.”). I admire the fiery exchange but they filibuster without exploring new angles and The Punisher should always be monosyllabic. Also, I haven’t seen the self-contradictory Daredevil show much leniency towards his prey except for his non-lethal amnesty towards Fisk. By far the best element is the tour-de-force, long-take fight down the stairwell with Daredevil wielding his chain like Ghost Rider. Tony Jaa would be proud and while it is definitely an art-direction flourish, the flashing red lights spring Dario Argento giallos to the mind.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Penny and Dime

Whenever you want to show the shock value of sacrilegious villains always have them tip over a coffin, it immediately makes them detestable because of their lack of respect for the sanctity of the corporeal body. This is surprisingly sober and somber episode. The speech from the priest that one “sinful life lost” is representative of a “whole world” was quite poignantly delivered. Peter McRobbie is such a potent actor that he can instill Matt with Catholic guilt without it sounding dire or overwrought. I love the fact that Frank is such an unstoppable, undeterred force that anesthetizing needles, bullet wounds and taser guns in unison barely incapacitate him. The crickets in the background and bas-relief urine-color filter add to the seedy flavor of New York after hours. It feels stripped straight from the comics when Daredevil is deflecting fatal tools out of Frank’s hand and he retorts back “altar boy.” This is high praise if you’re looking for a definitive team-up between these two. It’s truly mesmerizing to watch them share a moment in the graveyard where Frank reminisces about his daughter when he returned home from service. Emmy and Golden Globes should consider Bernthal for this elegiac scene alone. It’s rare that an action-oriented show slows down to let us gorge on a fantastic, dialogue-driven, almost mumblecore scene of someone pouring out their heart. Unfortunately, this is the capper to The Punisher’s arc in Season 2.

Rating: 4 out of 5

I wasn’t an outspoken fan of Daredevil‘s first season so why would I dip another toe into the Marvel Television universe’s pond? Simply put, a female protagonist and film noir. Sure, they dabbled in Age of Ultron with flashbacks to Black Widow’s neutered past but she is basically a soldier-for-hire. I doubt her backstory merits exploration. For their effort, Jessica Jones is a landmark show for Marvel on Netflix: equal parts Jake Gittes, Sarah Silverman and Ellen Ripley.

In the hard-boiled title role, Krysten Ritter’s jaundiced intonations and narration immediately strikes a chord with any aficionado of dimestore Philip Marlowe novels (“New York may be the city that never sleeps but it sure does sleep around” is my particular favorite quote). At first, Ritter’s acting is a bit too pouting and sardonic but her Jim Bean-soused world-weariness begins to bewitch you. She is prone with weepy bouts of sadness which we aren’t privy to yet.

She’s a shutterbug with a touch of titillating voyeurism and a chockful of PTSD (the abstract, telepathic Kilgrave (David Tennant) is omnipresent in her mind). On the fringes of society, Jessica is a purveyor of several acts of sexuality which is envelope-pushing in its eros as Daredevil was with its bloodthristy brutality.

This is a sleazy private investigator yarn at heart and it’s roots in the Marvel universe are nearly subterranean on first viewing. Our tease at Jessica’s superhuman prowess is when she smashes her office door window with the head of a cuckolded client (and later when she tosses a boot at her copulating neighbors above her) but otherwise this seems more like Veronica Mars than crimefighter saga. It’s a slow-burn, jazzy opening to the series that might strangulate the tolerances of comic-book nerds alike.

Melissa Rosenberg doesn’t exploit the lesbian characters for Joe Esterhaz prurience. The fact that attorney Jeri Hogarth’s (Carrie-Anne Moss) proclivity is with women isn’t her solitary trait. Meanwhile, I feared that Luke Cage’s presence might cause the show to feel like it was a wedged lead-in to the Defenders team-up. However, Mike Colter’s biplay with Ritter is frisky and flirtatious. Their sex scene is an evolutionary set forward for Marvel to frankly confront human desires.

Moreso than the cinematic incarnations, both Walter Fiska and Kilgrave are more Machiavellian antagonists than the Frost Giants or Iron Man’s business-tycoon rivals. Kilgrave’s paralytic mesmerism of Hope (Erin Moriarty), a ravishing NYU student, is definitively scary (she urinates in the bed when she can’t voluntarily break his influence not to leave a hotel bedroom). Later on, it’s devastating when a brainwashed Hope pulls the trigger on her own parents.

It’s too premature to say this is one of the best pilots ever but it is certainly a darkly pulpy original and more enrapturing than Daredevil because Jessica is a slumming, flawed antihero to be in the sidecar of. She is insolent towards saving New York at large. Rent control and female free-will are her primary concerns but her streetwise savoir-faire is graceful enough to keep us in her thrall.

Rating: 3.75 out of 5

Please forgive me Lord for I have committed a mortal peccadillo. For my transgression, I’ve repented and said ten “hail marys”. My sin, for which I am eternally condemned, was that I had never seen the cult classic Wet Hot American Summer until this weekend in preparation for the prequel series First Day of Camp. I was fully cognizant of the reputation but I hadn’t experienced it before. The verdict?

While it is clearly a faithful parody of raunchy sex comedies on a shoestring budget like Meatballs and other aestival films, it is sketchy and only a sporadically funny one-joke premise. Paul Rudd is hilarious as he groans in a petulant manner when a counselor asks him to clean up his cafeteria mess. The Bad News Bears subplot about the underdog sports team almost clashing with Camp Tiger Claw is also a side-splitting lampooning. On the other hand, the shorthand of chewing-gum as a preamble before making out, Amy Poehler’s theater auteur and Molly Shannon’s lovelorn arts-and-crafts teacher’s shtick with her emotionally intuitive students, are awfully thin, gossamer material to pivot upon.

Now the reunion has been released on Netflix with all the original cast members back for the 8-episode run. It’s a common practice for people in their 20’s and 30’s to play teenagers. Now the ensemble is in their 40’s which is the overriding in-joke. Given my non-predilection for the overhyped 2001 film, how does the limited-time resurgence fare?

The film was an uneven, kitchen-sink spoof that satirized sitcoms, training montages, climactic talent shows and 50’s science-fiction-panic pictures (the Devil’s Canyon Rapids sequence). It mocked Richard Linklater, Ivan Reitman and even Zucker Bros. absurdist humor. For the show, David Wain and Michael Showalter have whittled their scalpel to a fine point. For instance, I found Christopher Meloni’s deranged chef Gene Jenkinson to be pointless in the 2001, but his sleeper-cell backstory is mandatory to the facetious surroundings now.

Although I don’t have an affinity for the earlier film, it is surreal and nostalgic to see the cast back together (especially superstars like Rudd and Bradley Cooper). The passage-of-time jokes with Zak Orth’s overt wig and Michael Showalter’s obesity are amusing seams. Ken Marino is still ideal casting for the obnoxiously sex-starved virgin Victor.

Considering the slice-of-life nature of the property, the episode structure is more apposite for Camp Firewood. The volume of characters can navigate their witty arcs in unhurried snippets such as Andy’s (Paul Rudd) infatuation with Katie (Marguerite Moreau), toxic waste disposal near camp and Lindsay’s (Elizabeth Banks) Never Been Kissed undercover assignment for Rock & Rock World Magazine as a camouflaged 16-year-old. New additions like John Slattery, John Hamm, Jason Schwartzman and Josh Charles acquit themselves well among the addlepated zaniness.

The percentage of hitting the burlesque target is much higher in this. A barbed jab at Tootsie-esque drag farce with Cooperberg (Showalter) as a Patty whose fetish is defecating in swimming trunks is a prime recreation. Likewise with the popped-collared William Zabka snobs at Tiger Claw who are elitists from across the lake.

The euphoric energy of the cast, the subtle skewering of outdoor-recreation cliches (during a spooky campfire tale about Eric (Chris Pine), Banks conspicuously transcribes on a typewriter), volcanically funny nonsequitirs (The Falcon’s (Hamm) blithe holocaust of rebel punks) and splurged production values contribute to an appreciably funnier, richer, weirder experience. I feel honored to be included within the throngs of fans of this off-kilter spin-off.

Rating: 3.25 out of 5