Dir - Adrián García Bogliano
Overall: MEH
Though certainly worth its merit in several respects, Spanish director Adrián García Bogliano's first English language venture Late Phases does not quite overcome its noticeable obstacles. There are definitely benefits to using practical effects, especially nowadays where CGI often looks as terrible as ever. Yet when said makeup effects look more like a guy in a Halloween costume and you frame nearly all their shots in a very well lit manner as to notice, bad move. Instead for Bogliano to have kept his monsters in the shadows and only in quick closeups, (as several better films have shown to work, namely An American Werewolf in London), this cinematic boo-boo could have been avoided. Elsewhere, some of the acting and dialog is a bit stiff and it is a rather ridiculous pill to swallow that the law enforcement are so quick to pass off monthly murders in a retirement community as simple animal attacks and never investigate any further. They only happen in this area and every month? Christ, how many old people have to be picked off over how many months to get any cops to pay attention? All that said, Nick Damici, (under a good amount of aged makeup, begging the question why they did not just hire a much older actor in the first place), is actually fantastic as the blind, ex-Nam vet protagonist and his entire arch is still engaging to witness.
Dir - Marco Dutra
Overall: GOOD
Brazilian genre director Marco Dutra's adaptation of Lourenço Mutarelli's novel A Arte de Produzir Efeito Sem Causa is his follow-up the joint, Juliana Rojas collaboration Hard Labor from 2011, representing his first solo full-length. Slow boils can go disastrously wrong just as easily as anything else anything utilizing the opposite approach, yet Quando Eu Era Vivo, (When I Was Alive), assuredly benefits from taking its time. The script by Dutra and fellow filmmaker/writer Gabriela Amaral Almeida is incredibly thorough with its details. There are a few moments that at first seem rather sloppy, (particularly how our sympathies towards protagonists Marat Descartes and Sandy Leah are perverted and shifted), but they all got cleared up along the way, proving that the time and dedication was taken to make all the narrative components fit. Even as things get continually ramped up, a lesser director could have easily ventured into campy terrain, but Dutra keeps things on the straight and narrow. Now when it comes to crystal clear closer, that is not something readily present here, nor should it be. It is a very intelligently done bit of psychological horror that makes its actual lack of much overt "horror" itself pleasantly forgivable.
Dir - Jonathan Milott/Cary Murnion
Overall: WOOF
When half of the writing team for Cooties is Leigh Whannell, the guy behind the truly abysmal work of James Wan, (Saw, Insidious, Dead Silence), may the viewer be seriously warned. Going full horror comedy, this is a blunder in every direction it turns. Though it is loaded with an exceptional cast, (including revered comedic actors Rainn Wilson and Jack McBrayer), the movie is about as intentionally funny as anything in the Saw series. Meaning not at all. From a zombie outbreak/people trapped in a single location trying to escape framework, the film is as textbook and boring as any of the hundreds of other movies with an identical premise. This means all of the over-the-top, splatty gore is completely wasted on such an uninspired, commonplace setup. What really sinks the ship though is how it is trying way, way, way, way too hard. Every plot point and ounce of dialog is incredibly forced to make an audience chuckle at utterly random character quirks like Leigh Whannell's teacher who continually yells at everyone to be quiet when no one is talking, plus 80s action movie motifs like a suiting up montage, moronic one-liners, and a bunch of adults murdering hoards of kids in the most "badass" fashion possible. All of which will warrant cricket noises instead of waves of hysterical applause. The insultingly illogical "oh wait he's not dead and is here to save us at the most convenient time possible" ending comes when all of this stuff has groan to such an obnoxious pitch that it transforms just a dull, stupid, failed attempt at a self-aware genre parody into something just odious in all the wrong ways.
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