2017 Horror Part Two

XX
Dir - Jovanka Vuckovic/Annie Clark/Roxanne Benjamin/Karyn Kusama
Overall: MEH 

Both Roxanne Benjamin who had done an admirable job in 2015's Southbound and KarynKusama, (Jennifer's Body, The Invitation) team up with newcomers Jovanka Vuckovic and St. Vincent herself Annie Clark of all completely random people to bring another horror anthology together in XX.  The personnel here takes center stage more than anything else and despite the feminist-centric angle, the results are standard for these kind of collections, this one getting more successful as it goes along.  The opening story "The Box" almost has a creepy premise, but is handled ineffectively; the illogical behavior of the parents is distracting and the supernatural or whatever conundrum is handled way too randomly.  Clark's "The Birthday Party" goes for subtle laughs and achieves them, but is absolutely absent of anything befitting to the genre that the film, as a whole, is in.  "Don't Fall" is the complete opposite; the most typical horror entry out of the bunch, being quick and to the point.  Kusama delivers the most solid if somewhat unoriginal moment with "Her Only Living Son", basically a Rosemary's Baby sequel, though that is not necessarily a bad thing.  The whole of XX is certainly a decent try, but it also just kind of simmers as average.

IT COMES AT NIGHT
Dir - Trey Edward Shults
Overall: MEH

Trey Adward Shult's second feature, (two for two to get a hefty amount of praise after his debut Krisha), It Comes at Night plays a very subdued game, disguising itself as a post-apocalyptic horror film when in fact it is about the unity of family and grieving loved ones.  Not that it cannot have its horror movie cake and eat it too, but the film's genre adhering moments really do come off as a ruse more than anything else.  The rather bland nightmare sequences provide the movie with its only moments to put in a trailer in order to justify it getting a "horror" tag.  The story itself is far more interesting and effective in its unease and heartbreak than it is with minimal boo scares and consistently menacing music.  Shults shows pretty considerable storytelling skills though, even when the story is barely there as in this case.  Besides the pointless dream scenes, every other frame is anything but wasted and it all comes off very realistic and rooted in believable logic.  The one-note tone is kept in check without getting too depressing and the cabin setting deliberately has no defining geography.  Nearly all of the post-apocalyptic details are kept vague as we are not even told what part of the country this takes place in.  So Shults certainly trims much of the fat and keeps things moving slow, yet moving nonetheless.  The end result is just a tad too sparse with just a few too many unnecessary, (be it brief), touches.

mother!
Dir - Darren Aronofsky
Overall: MEH

For his seventh directed film, this is more uncomfortably ambitions than any of the previous Darren Aronofsky movies that set the course, including Requiem for a Dream and The Fountain.  mother! is quintessential for Aronofsky really, with his pretensions colliding brutally.  Hand-held close ups, inspired visual effects, and many acts unfolding in front of the screen that run through grand levels of unpleasant, the entirety of the film is a build up, just as Aronofsky's career is to making it.  From the opening shots, we are let in on the fact that most likely we are not witnessing what it appears that we are witnessing.  Characters seem to be at first only a few steps away from reality, only to slam home the fact that they could not be farther removed by the end.  The rudeness and strangeness of the supporting cast's behavior intensifies and then we have a moment where it appears that things are going into a diverse direction from what came before.  This turns out to be a sneaky maneuver though as instead, the final act is on a level of grandiosity the likes of which only a handful of present-day films trash you over the head with.  This is where Aronofsky simply, (or complexly), goes too far.  There is so much detonating instead of oozing from the frame in the finale that the movie's laundry pile of themes become mute to the avalanche of savagery we are witnessing.  Assuredly, Aronofsky's results were intentional though as he has proven himself, (Noah notwithstanding), to be one of the consistently most imaginative and best American filmmakers in contemporary times.  By that same token though, hardly anyone could admit that all of mother! was necessary to experience.