DVDebut for the James Patterson/Dave Allsop/Alex Francis sci-fi nonsense, CAUGHT

When CAUGHT got its very limited theatrical run this past March, TrustMovies, after reading glowing reviews (glowing for that of a mini-budget sci-fi/alien invasion movie, at least) in both the NY Times and L.A. Times, determined to see it whenever possible. Now that it's out on DVD, he has, and you may consider this his warning.

The film has an interesting premise and an OK first fifteen-or-so minutes. And then it quickly grows dumber and more tiresome.

Written by Dave Allsop and Alex Francis and directed by Jamie Patterson (shown at right), Caught (that title is the most ironic and unusual part of the film) begins with a bunch of exposition (about half of which is unnecessary and misleading) and then one of those situations that fairly screams Don't do it!, which our course our leading characters immediately do.

It's one thing when people you suspect are aliens don't act like humans. Much more problematic is when the actual humans don't either. Add to this a top-heavy and ridiculously loud musical score (credited to Moritz Schmittat) that so effectively drowns out much of the dialog that is spoken once the unmasking occurs that yours truly wished desperately for English subtitles (there are none on the DVD) so that I could better understand the mostly drowned-out, British-accented dialog.

But then, once that music calmed down so that I could actually understand that dialog, it proved silly and tiresome enough for me to quickly wish composer Schmittat back on the job.

Caught combines the sci-fi and home invasion genres, pitting a couple of powerful aliens (above and further above) against a nitwit husband/wife team, but the struggle is so thoroughly unequal from almost the first, and our would-be heroes so incapable of doing much more than babble back and forth to each other rather than take any action. When they finally do, of course, it's too little too late.

Grizzly murder, endangered children and good old-fashioned photography (the film takes place in 1972, so no internet, cell phones and the like) come to the fore. Regarding that photography, however, one might wonder how any decent photographer could take a photo of something so clearly shocking and yet not be at all aware of what he had photographed. Better not to even address this.

Performances are as good as they can be, under these strained circumstances, but the movie consistently pulls its punches regarding everything from offering explanations to allowing us to see that shocking photo (our heroes view it, above, but we're not made privy -- undoubtedly for budgetary reasons). The single punch the film does not pull is its willingness to go the dark and ugly route. If dark and ugly is your thing, you may find Caught more worthwhile than I.

From Great Point Media and Cinedigm, the movie hit the street on DVD last Tuesday, May 1, and is available now for purchase and/or rental.

With BEFORE WE VANISH, the prolific Kiyoshi Kurosawa has a new film -- one of his best -- opening in theaters

With 48 directorial credits (beginning in 1975), Japanese filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa, whose movie, Daguerrotype, only recently opened here, already has another one hitting theaters this week. Better yet, his new alien-invasion-like-you've-never-seen-it sci-fi/thriller/comedy/drama, BEFORE WE VANISH, may well be one of his best ever. More surprising (to TrustMovies, at least) is how very poignant and moving it turns out to be.

Mr. Kurosawa, shown at left, though he has made nearly 50 films, has had only seven of these (to my knowledge) released here in the U.S. Of those, I've found Dagguerrotype the least enthralling and Before We Vanish the most.

The film is a kind of alien-invasion movie as seen through the view of only three of these aliens -- you might call them "scouts" -- whose job it is to assess the human population and gather what information they can from that populace before the real invasion begins and all human life is destroyed.

As directed by Kurosawa with a screenplay adapted (from the play by Tomohiro Maekawa) by the director and Sachiko Tanaka, the movie immediately dumps us into the middle of things as we see a man in a hospital, recovering from an accident and attended by his wife. Concurrently, a young girl comes home from school to suddenly massacre her family and leave some other very odd damage in her wake. A third young man (below, right), wandering the street, picks up a human journalist (below, left) we've only just met to be his "guide."

Yes, these are our three aliens, each of whom has taken over a human body (a nod, without pod, to Invasion of the Body Snatchers) and it is through them -- along with the several humans with whom they come in contact and interact -- that we come to understand who they are and what they want.  Kurosawa is best-know for his nerve-jangling supernatural thrillers in which much of the scares come via indirection, surprise and sheer creepiness (the perfectly titled Creepy is one of his most effective), but here this talented filmmaker instead uses the scenario to explore another famous sci-fi trope used in films from well prior to the original Blade Runner to its recent woeful follow-up: What does it mean to be human?

For my money Kurosawa and company do the best job so far of bringing this particular theme to grand, moving and even very funny life. The two younger aliens are brought to life well enough that we can glean a good deal of info about their "alien" character, one quite different from the other, and we come to understand and appreciate that cynical human journalist quite well, too.

But the character who really nails this movie belongs to that third alien, the young man (above, left) who we first see in the hospital, along with his human wife (above, center). As a human, prior to his being "taken," our guy was evidently something of a rotter: a caddish player who treated his wife like trash. Now only his very attractive shell is left, inside of which resides a being who wants to learn all it can about humans and their lives.

How this comes to be changes everything, and the journey that our very odd "hero" and his wife take, along with that journalist and a few other hangers-on makes for one of the most unusual, often amusing, and finally utterly moving and thought-provoking trips that alien-invasion movies have so far given us.

Our aliens have the ability, as above, to draw out of us humans the "concepts" they want to understand. Things such as "work" and "play" and, yes, "love." How the removal of such concepts leaves the humans provides some of the more amusing moments in the film, but how these work on the aliens makes for even more confusion and surprise.

Kurosawa has larded his movie with a little gore, violence and action occasionally, yet special effects are kept to a minimum. (Has a small budget ever achieved quite this large a movie?!) What holds us are the ideas and the wonderful subtlety with which the filmmaker works. How well he achieves this can be ascertained by how almost shockingly believable the movie is. You buy it, hook, line and sinker. This is also thanks to the marvelous performances from his well-chosen cast: Masami Nagasawa as the wife, Hiroki Hasegawa as the journalist, and especially Ryûhei Matsuda (above and below) as the alien hubby. Mr. Matsuda has a face that is so beautiful yet vacant and pliable, especially in repose (which it most often is here), that he turns this alien into something quite special.

There's a scene maybe two-thirds along that takes place in a church into which the husband has wandered in order to understand the concept of love. Inside a children's choir is singing, and the priest sits with our guy and tries to explain a few things. This may be one of the most perfectly realized bit of sci-fi wonderment ever seen, and it changes the course of the film. Though the concept may be Christian, I am quite certain both Buddha and Mohammed would appreciate it equally well. Moses? With his stern commandments rather than Jesus' loving beatitudes, maybe not so much. But then the Jews are still waiting for their Messiah. In any case, this is a less a religious movie than a humane one.

I find it odd that, with all the supposed triumph-of-the-human-spirit movies made these days (many of them sentimental, silly hogwash), it would take an alien invasion film to truly (and so quietly!) make this theme resonate.

From NEON's new boutique label SUPER LTD, Before We Vanish opens this Friday, February 2, in New York City at the IFC Center and will then play a number of Alamo Drafthouse theaters throughout the country. Click here to see all currently scheduled playdates and/or to find a theater maybe near you. If you can't find this film in a movie house, at least stick it on your list for future streaming, DVD or Blu-ray viewing. It is simply too good to miss.

More Blair Witchery: Daniel Simpson's DIY found-footage clone, HANGAR 10, opens

So many questions! Is it possible, in this day and age, that Britain neither saw nor even heard about The Blair Witch Project? If so, that's a hard one to believe. If not, why then, some fifteen years later, would anyone practically remake that movie, this time setting it in a forest in Britain and adding a slightly more interesting -- if utterly obvious -- ending and a lot of bright lights? About those lights: Is there anyone left alive who find this sort of thing even vaguely scary? (They certainly were not so in this year's earlier alien romance, Honeymoon, and they are even less so here.) Final questions: Just because you are able to make a movie on a budget of two dollars and ninety-five cents, does this mean that you should? Has the old saw You get what you pay for completely lost its meaning? (From the looks of the movie itself, the poster above is where the entire budget was spent.)

As you will have guessed these questions all stem from having recently viewed the least interesting, least effective film of the year: a would-be fright fest called HANGAR 10, which gives us three characters (above, below, and the guy on the poster, top) in search of a movie. The three do not seem to much like each other (the two men may be vying for the woman), and they do consistently stupid things throughout, while mostly yelling at each other. And, yes, we have a hand-held camera that shakes a lot and records almost nothing of any interest except a creature-like thing that runs in front of it for a moment about one hour along -- but is never seen nor heard from again.

We are told in the opening credits (and as often happens at the beginning of movies like this one) that what we are about to see is all true and that the footage was found on some laptop. Who cares? Crap, after all, remains crap, wherever it is discovered. The movie adds to the Blair Witch ending by having our threesome actually discover something. What it is and what it means, however, has been so obvious from almost the begin-ning that the filmmaker gets no points for originality. Or anything else.

The filmmaker here (he both wrote and directed) is Daniel Simpson, and his cast includes Robert Curtis, Abbie Salt and Danny Shayler. I dearly hope that someone will suggest to Mr. Simpson (and all other budding filmmakers) that a moratorium be called on this kind of torture-for-the-paying-audience movie. There is simply no longer any point to making stuff like this when every fourth-rate filmmaker can do it (and probably already has) in his sleep. Surely there are other ways (and plots available) to make a movie on the cheap? Please.

As to the filmic "style" used, it is by now a "badge of honor" that movies like this one must appear to have made themselves. (Without much honesty, however. Who it is that is shooting certain scenes -- and why -- is too pointless and tiresome to figure out.) The dialog, too, is generally woeful, probably improvised. Or at least it sounds that way.

If there is any audience left in the world for this kind of film, it must be comprised of people who love repetition above all else, or perhaps novices to film-going who will accept just about anything as new and exciting.

It's your move, as they say. And Hangar 10, released by IFC Midnight, opens this Friday, November 7, in New York City at the IFC Center. And if you don't live in NYC, despair not. The film makes its VOD debut simultaneously.

Leigh Janiak's HONEYMOON horror movie asks us to figure out what's happening -- and why

As her  first try at directing and co-writing (with Phil Graziadei) a movie, Leigh Janiak, shown in the photo below, has come up with a little "weirdity" called HONEYMOON. While I wish it were better, I will not decimate it in the manner of the guest I brought along ("I can't remember a more complete waste of time.") nor in the words of the lady who rode down in the elevator with us ("I want my 87 minutes back!"). As we need more women at the helm of today's movies, however, it pains me to have to say that Honeymoon is pretty much a waste of time.

While the first half of the film is at least tolerable (though the cutesy, lovey-dovey honeymoon-couple interplay between its stars Rose Leslie (bottom, below) and Harry Treadaway (top, below) at times comes a little too close to setting the teeth on edge), by the end of the enterprise, it is clear that Ms Janiak has missed the boat in just about every conceivable way. Did she want to give us a straight-out horror movie about alien possession of one of this newlywed pair? Is this more a sci-fi/fantasy? Is there some deeper man-woman/feminist-patriarchal significance playing out around the edges? Perhaps "yes" to all three, yet nothing here works well enough to make us give a hoot.

Withholding information and then offering up enough to make us want to continue is key in movies like this one. But Janiak withholds as though this were all we needed. And for far too long. Really, couldn't she and Mr. Graziadei have come up with something a bit better than a white light shining into the newlyweds' bedroom, hovering over their faces (without waking them up?). This is neither scary nor very intelligent.

Once the pair have demonstrated that something bad is happening to our heroine, they simply leave it at that. It is soon quite apparent where this whole thing is going, so any suspense quickly drains out of the tale. It remains creepy, however, mostly thanks to the low-grade-but-effective special effects.

There is one very good and gruesome scene toward the finale -- this is probably what induced the film's distributor, Magnet Releasing, to take a chance on it -- the "money shot" of the horror genre, so to speak. But I fear this will not prove enticing enough for word of mouth to properly spread.

Mr Treadaway, who, along with his brother Luke, is one of the more handsome young actors around, with a face you just want to keep watching. He has the better role here, for he is allowed a good deal of variation. Poor Ms Leslie, once she has become prey, is pretty much one-note throughout and not a lot of fun or even of much interest, as wife or monster.

Proper foreshadowing is provided by another couple we meet along the way (played by Ben Huber and Hanna Brown). Otherwise, this one's a two-hander, until, at last, it loses one of those hands.

Honeymoon opens this Friday, September 12, in New York City (at the Cinema Village) and Los Angeles (at the Sundance Sunset Cinemas). Click here to view a few other playdates, with cities and theaters.

Death in the mountains: one great, one good streaming title -- A LONELY PLACE TO DIE and DEVIL'S PASS -- are more than worth a look

Mountain climbing movies have their own special appeal -- built-in suspense and fear-of-falling top the list -- so fans of this genre should be aware of two films currently available on Netflix streaming that ought to please lovers of this sub-genre, even as each succeeds quite nicely as a

"scare" movie. DEVIL'S PASS combines the climb (or at least the trudge, as there is no particular mountain involved here) with aliens, the supernatural and teleportation all jumbled up into the currently fashionable found-footage genre, with the result (if you stay the course, that is) surprisingly effective. A LONELY PLACE TO DIE -- combines some real and very exciting mountain climbing with the thriller genre (kidnap/chase variety) and comes up with one of the best and most satisfying thrillers of our new millennium.

In fact, thinking back on all the "thrillers" TrustMovies has encountered over the past few decades, A Lonely Place to Die proves the most surprising, tension-filled and entertaining since a little out-of-nowhere film called Mute Witness hit the screen back in 1995. The movie shows, in spades, what real creativity in terms of concept and execution, dialog and cinematography can bring to a genre in which, these days, many examples hit the screen practically DOA.

As usual, the less you know about plot details going-in, the more enjoyment you're bound to get from the many surprises along the way -- all of which make absolute sense (these are not twists on top of twists for the sake of effect). Director and co-writer/producer/editor Julian Gilbey gets the lion's share of praise for creating such a perfectly-paced, nail-biter of a movie, the suspense and forward thrust of which keeps increasing until the films' final couple of minutes.

While it takes maybe twenty of the 99-minute running time to kick into action, even this initial section, which sets up the mountain-climbing, as well as the characters, is very well done. Once the real plot gets under way, the suspense never lets up. The movie is well-cast, too, with every performer registering strongly and Melissa George (above) especially convincing in the lead role.

Despite a body count shockingly high, even in a genre like this one, perhaps the movie's finest touch is its introduction of the question of empathy and concern, and what caring about people, in the words of the nastiest villain, "gets you." These small moments keep the film grounded in humanity and help us watch even during some pretty grueling scenes.

Streamable (and looking quite terrific) in wide-screen high-definition via Netflix, A Lonely Way to Die is, for a number of reasons, a must-see.

****************

Devil's Pass, on the other hand, is more like a could-see -- maybe a should-see, if you especially enjoy this sort of shoot-as-you-go-becomes-found-footage horror movie. As directed by journeyman filmmaker Renny Harlin, it's better than most of the other near-crap in this particular and increasingly overcrowded genre due to the workmanlike professionalism present throughout.

Its story is that of a group of college kids who are intent, due to the pushing of their leader (Holly Goss, above), on replicating the climb of a group of Russian mountaineers some fifty years previous. Just why it is so important to the young woman will finally become clear -- in one doozy of an explanation -- at film's finale. If you've been paying good attention, you'll figure it all out, but probably only moments before the movie-maker himself lets his several cats out of their bag.

With the crew's video camera always on, we get much of the usual hand-held jerky camera movement and back-and-forth nattering from our group of campers, along with a very cleverly "contained" avalanche, some sex-in-the-tent, possible aliens, murder most foul, and finally teleportation and a reference to the Philadelphia Experiment.

Harlin, his writer Vikram Weet, and his capable cast make the 100 minutes (a little long for this genre) move quickly enough, and as I say, if you stick with the movie, which gets better as it moves along, you'll probably be glad you did. It's currently streamable via Netflix -- and elsewhere, too, I believe.

John Carpenter's finest? Judge for yourself, as THEY LIVE gets a silver anniversary re-release

Those of us who saw THEY LIVE upon its original release some 25 years ago knew we were in the presence of something special. But who'd a thunk the film would hold up this well? It does indeed, and although a new They Live appears to be in development now -- oh, it'll be glossier and filled with more expensive special effects, all right -- it's difficult to believe that it could be any better than its predecessor.

Directed and with a screenplay by John Carpenter (shown below), from a short story by Ray Nelson, the movie burst upon us just a couple of months prior to the end of the administration of Ronald Reagan, as a kind of angry and ironic thank you for the horrific damage Reagan and his cronies had wrought on the U.S. populace (many of us had only begun to understand the extent of the damage at this time).

Chock full of politics, economics, culture and philosophy -- all of which were turned into a riveting "message" about consumerism and a populace put to sleep -- this is a story of, yes, an alien take-over of America in the form of the most seemingly benignly Capitalistic means imaginable. If it takes awhile (maybe one full third of the film) for They Live to get going, that first third is so full of progressive ideas it must have had poor Kyle Smith (if he saw the film first time 'round) shitting a brick. Set in a Los Angeles where jobs are scarce and the pay is woeful, the film shows us the working poor (after the de-taxation of the rich, an increase in the national debt, the union busting and other Reagan "achievements") reduced to eviction and living in shantytowns -- which are from time to time destroyed by the police.

If this does not sound so far afield from what we can soon expect if our politicians and Supreme Court continue their current "work," you can probably imagine what it was like for audiences a quarter-century ago to go into the theaters expecting monsters and scares and to come out 93 minutes later frightened in a whole new way -- with their brains de-frying then re-composing. The "everything you know is wrong" scenario sure found fertile ground in this film!

Not that there aren't plenty of scary monsters (above) and jolts along the way. But these are all used sublimely well in service to the message: How do you shake off the clammy hand of abusive power, no matter the species that is wielding it.

Slavoj Zizek, in his new film The Pervert's Guide to Ideology uses They Live as one of the better examples of an under-sung Hollywood classic that also possesses intelligence, wit and a philosophy. It surely is. The film also reminded me not a little of Nat Christian's 2011 Monday Morning, but with a much heavier use of the fantasy/sci-fi element.

In addition, the movie gave actors like wrestler Roddy Piper (two photos above), a young Keith David (just above), and Meg Foster (below, whose gorgeous, odd, see-through eyes make her look like an alien already) the opportunity to shine, appearing in a movie that is destined to outlast them -- and us -- all.

After the many thrills and plot machinations, Carpenter's ending is absolutely terrific: funny, nasty, dirty and exactly right for a movie that politically, socially and philosophically knew exactly what it was doing and did it damned well. So, come on, remake: Let's see what you're made of!

Meanwhile, you can peruse the original, from Universal Pictures, which opens this Friday, December 6, in New York City at the IFC Center, before eventually, I hope, coming to VOD, DVD and maybe Blu-ray in its crisp new high-definition DCP image.

Another five-part horror opus V/H/S/2: Lightning, it seems, does not strike twice.

The below review first appeared as this film was making its VOD debut last month. TrustMovies is posting it again, as the movie opens tomorrow theatrically.

Last year's six-part horror surprise V/H/S provided a nasty jolt of bizarre, hand-held scares from a few of our favorite independent filmmakers, some of whom had not ventured into this territory previously. Its follow-up, V/H/S/2 -- other than the genuinely scary and original mid-sectioned Safe Haven by Timo Tjahjanto and Gareth Huw Evans (who gave us last year's action hit The Raid: Redemption) -- is a disappointing potpourri of repetition and, god help us, zombies and aliens, with another not-so-hot, wrap-around section (which was the original's weakest part, as well).

Safe Haven, about a couple of journalists trying to discover the truth behind a little-known Southeast Asian cult with a taste for suicide that could lead to something, well, uh... bigger has the the kind of documentary feel and narrative flair that could give Jim Jones nightmares. In addition to being the best of the five works cobbled together to make one full-length film, it is also the longest and most assured piece of movie-making.

Low-budget, it nonetheless smacks of creativity in everything from story to performances to production values, which is more than can be said for most of the other sections -- which reply on jiggly, hand-held scares which, often as not don't arrive because you really can't figure out WTF is going on. This is not true of A Ride in the Park by Edúardo Sanchez and Gregg Hale, in which you can figure most everything out. This short film returns us to zombieland once again but doesn't provide much that's new (other than the POV) yet seems to go on and on and on.

The wrap-around, Tape 49 by Simon Barrett (above), is another of those break into a house and discover a bunch of videos, which of course must be played and then paid for rather drastically. The usual suspense and little surprise ensues.

Phase 1 Clinical Trials (above) by Adam Wingard does The Eye kind of thing in OK-but-so-what? fashion, while the final segment, Slumber Party Alien Abduction (below) by Jason Eisener, is the roughest-hewn of the five and also the least compelling. The low-budget here wears its heart on its sleeve, doing nobody any favors.

So, when the movie -- from Magnet Releasing, The Collective and Bloody Disgusting and running a too-long 95 minutes -- opens theatrically on July 12 (it's actually opening tonight, 7/11/13, in West L.A. at the NuArt), go for the Asian cult number. Or better yet, as the movie made its VOD debut on June 6, stay at home where you can fast forward when necessary. If you prefer the theatrical exper-ience, you can find V/H/S/2's scheduled theatrical playdates here.