Overall: MEH
A clunky supernatural melodrama that takes on some heavy themes, We Go On is the third and to-date last collaboration between writer/directors Andy Mitten and Jesse Holland. Its inconsistencies are balanced by a few standout performances, even if Mitten and Holland's screenplay is too silly to properly buy into. Annette O'Toole is a funny and hard-nosed mother that at first humors her adult, phobia-plagued son in his ridiculous quest to find someone who can prove that there is an afterlife after placing an add in a newspaper; an add that gets a thousand results which breaks verisimilitude because do a thousand people even read the newspapers anymore let alone respond to adds? The journey that O'Toole and the "too-good-looking to be an awkward agoraphobe" Clarke Freeman go on brings them in contact with a huckster, a traumatized lady who proves to actually commune with the dead, another huckster that they do not even bother meeting, and ultimately a weird airplane enthusiast that kicks off the second, psychologically nightmarish second half. Just like the uneven writing, the scare pieces are a combination of hackneyed and inventive and the emotional core that becomes increasingly paramount seems better suited to, well, a better movie.
Dir - Erlingur Thoroddsen
Overall: WOOF
The full-length debut from Icelandic writer/director Erlingur Thoroddsen Child Eater is an unfortunate schlock-fest and a surprising one at that coming from the filmmaker who followed it up in his native country with the far more respectable The Rift. Insultingly stupid while simultaneously maintaining a grimy, bleak tone, the boogeyman story line tosses in a number of arbitrary tropes. We have a "weird" kid who gets told that he has an over-active imagination so grown-ups fail to listen to him, shoots a sling-shot at the bad guy during the finale, (lord help us), and wanders around investigating spooky areas by himself like all kids always do in real life of course. Also, there is a wacky old lady with newspaper clippings all over her wall and a collection of dolls, the strained father/daughter relationship, the melancholy final girl who has a newfound sense of responsibility due to recently having found out that she has a baby on the way, characters exchanging background exposition in a campfire story fashion, and a supernaturally charged title character who is immune to bullets and blunt force trauma until he is not. Along with all of this hack nonsense is some embarrassing dialog delivered by cringe-worthy performances that range from melodramatic camp, to wise-ass and smirky, to just plain old wooden. In other words, crap from front to back.
Dir - Rod Blackhurst
Overall: MEH
As the zombie apocalypse train just keeps on stubbornly trudging alone, the only two angles that filmmakers seem capable of taking within it are to make it a comedy or an enormously depressing drama. The latter is the case in Rod Blackhurst's full-length debut Here Alone; an exhaustive film with minimal virus infection mayhem so we can instead painfully bask in a small crop of character's miserable ordeal. Stylistically bleak and grimy with people literally covering their already dirty bodies with mud and piss to throw their scent off from the plague monsters, Blackhurst of course films it all with a diluted color pallet and peppers the whole thing with a subdued violin score. As unoriginal as they come in this respect, the script by David Ebeltoft similarly offers up nothing fresh to the formula. Once again we are just witnessing people grieve and/or put-down their loved ones, only to become metaphorically zombie-like themselves as they wallow in guilt and desperation, meagerly surviving one wretched day at a time. Performance wise, it is uneven and stiff at times, but to be fair, the minimal assortment of actors are given very little to do besides look sad and make a few through-provoking speeches while not getting interrupted by the person that they are trying to convince.
No comments:
Post a Comment