Dir - Berkley Brady
Overall: MEH
Canadian filmmaker Berkley Brady's debut Dark Nature may not offer enough unique ingredients to the steadfast "people go hiking in the woods" type of survivalist horror, but its small band of traumatized female characters remain compelling even if the freaky elements seem undercooked. Shot in Kananaskis County, Alberta, it brings to mind flashes of Neil Marshall's The Descent if it was a self-help group of women embarking on a nature retreat instead of experienced spelunking friends foolishly venturing into an undiscovered cave system, though we ultimately get such claustrophobic moments here as well. There are also more psychological elements at play, as the icky force that they encounter seems to conjure up vivid hallucinations that tap directly into their already ravished emotions. It has a foreseeable outcome where Hannah Emily Anderson's protagonist stares her own all too real demons in the face in a well-deserved moment of empowerment, but it comes off as less hokey than it could have if this had a more schlock-peddling presentation. Brady treats the material more nuanced and respectfully than that, which is a plus since nothing life-threatening transpires until the third act and once the otherworldly horror kicks into heavy gear, it comes off as more of a derivative afterthought than anything else.
Dir - Tereza Nvotová
Overall: GOOD
The contemporary folk horror outing Nightsiren, (Světlonoc), enigmatically explores close-minded superstitions, chauvinism, bigotry, the fear of outsiders, and most importantly, the trauma that befalls those who try and co-mingle with such suffocating clutches after years of escaping them. Shot in the picturesque Slovak mountains, the locale is both intimidating and gorgeous as it melds the modern day with ageless scenery and vague, ancient mysticism. Moments that toy with the supernatural can easily be interpreted as straight-up, drug-fueled hallucinations or a cinematic look into the character's subconscious fears, with co-writer/director Tereza Nvotová taking an explicitly arthouse route in providing no concrete answers to the images that she presents us with. While such ambiguity will require further views and musings to come to terms with, what is unmistakable is the harrowing, anti-feminist scenario that both Natalia Germani and Eva Mores' characters have found themselves in, where wife-beaters, rapists, and all manner of disrespectful pigs of the male equation are not only tolerated, but nonchalantly embraced by their small, isolated community. How a thinly-veiled tale of witchcraft intertwines with such things is inconclusive at best, but Nvotová opens a number of doors here that are worth peering into as well as being atmospherically engrossing in the process.
Overall: GOOD
A dark yet absurd Lovecraftian comedy from director Rebekah McKendry, Glorious has a fun, bare-bones premise yet the effectiveness of its inherent tonal challenge is a mixed bag. Utilizing few actors, the brunt of the movie falls on Ryan Kwanten's shoulders as a tortured man who seems to be fleeing the aftermath of a meaningful relationship gone wrong, only to come in contact with an ancient god in a bathroom stall. Such a silly hook carries things through and the script by Joshua Hull and David Ian McKendry manages to remain engaging even as we are stuck at a single location with Kwanten and the always engaging voice of J.K. Simmons throughout the entire ride. The flashback/fever dream sequences never let on to the final act twist which arrives when the entire universe is facing imminent doom unless Kwanten's character makes a painful sacrifice, (the specifics of which are never explained nor important), but such a reveal sours an already increasingly bleak trajectory. Despite the movie's title which is likely done with its tongue-in-cheek, this is a cynical story about mankind being oblivious to the monsters that inhabit and threaten it, but it is also an impressively inventive one done on a small scale even if the subject matter is grandiose in scope.
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