Dir - Randy Moore
Overall: MEH
This independent debut from Randy Moore is an odd, somewhat notorious offering in more ways than one. From a production standpoint, it garnished a significant amount of attention from critics as the film was shot almost entirely at both Disney World and Disneyland, both parks of which fit in quite narratively as well. Disney eventually acknowledged the movie without pursuing any serious legal action, but from such a sue-friendly company, the mere existence of Escape from Tomorrow is in and of itself remarkable. As far as the actual film goes, it is strange though not exclusively for good reasons. It was shot with inexpensive cameras that could remain hidden from Disney staff, then rendered in black and white. While this gets around the issue of lack of lighting control, it still gives it a bit of an off-putting, amateur YouTube channel quality. Embarrassing use of green screen in a few instances further emphasizes this. Some of the story elements like a family dysfunctionally disintegrating while on a stressful vacation and the husband's sex-deprived marriage leading him to horndog hallucinations are interesting and occasionally amusing. Things increasingly go into sloppy, surrealistic mode though with a nonsensical and pretentious third act and payoff.
Dir - Dennis Iliadis
Overall: MEH
Full of trippy, Twilight Zone-level aesthetics with plenty of psychological themes in place, Greek filmmaker Dennis Iliadis' follow up to the 2009 The Last House on the Left remake + 1, (Plus One, Shadow Walkers), is interesting though ultimately uneven. A solid example of posing far more questions than providing answers, those questions sustain the film to a point. The concept of reliving a regrettable moment with a near immediate level of hindsight gives the movie an emotional backbone that is more intriguing than the rather ill-defined, sinister bizarro-world stuff that becomes more prominent in the third act. Iliadis goes for a tone of balancing humor with mounting doom, but it is a bit rushed in the violent, catastrophic finale where things seem to arrive there awkwardly. Likewise, most of the character arcs resolve themselves clumsily and a kind of ugly feeling permeates after the credits role. It is ambitious and deserves credit for what it may be trying to attempt though, plus the final showdown is visually impressive as far as how it was pulled off.
Dir - Park Chan-wook
Overall: MEH
A knowing quasi-re-working of Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt by actor-turned-screenwriter Wentworth Miller and South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook in his English speaking debut, Stoker is a partially successful thriller. The three leads in Nicole Kidman, Mia Wasikowska, and Matthew Goode turn in quite different though equally strong performances, though Goode's incessant smirking does become a bit irksome after awhile. Chan-wook does an impressive job with the material, maintaining a dreadful tone with no breaks for humor and his frequent collaborator Chun Chung-hoo photographs everything beautifully and stylishly from the cinematographer chair. It is a shame that the material in question is rather sub-par. Far fetched and melodramatic in parts with a somewhat foreseeable reveal opening up doors that are fumblingly gone through, the story becomes dull and almost ham-fisted when it should be oozing with tension. With a lesser director or lesser actors, the movie could have been in far more serious trouble. As it stands though, it is clearly flawed yet meritable in enough areas to elevate it out of being exclusively mediocre.
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