Kourosh Ahari's THE NIGHT: You can take Iranians out of Iran, but...

...you can't take Iran out of Iranians. That's one of the several take-aways the viewer might glean from the new, would-be scary movie rather generically titled THE NIGHT, from writer/director/producer Kourosh Ahari (shown below), an Iranian émigré who moved with his family to Palo Alto, California, when he was 18 years old. 

Before TrustMovies gets into why this movie bored the pants off him, let me say how well-photographed it is (by Maz Makhani). Quite classily done, really. And also that it is interesting (for a short while, at least) to see a film about Iranians residing in the USA. That's something different from our usual view of the citizens of Iran. 

Content-wise, however, there is maybe, if we're very lucky, a bare half-hour of story here. The movie itself is stretched out to 105 minutes. Ouch. Or more à propos, snore. The plot, such as it is, involves a family -- dad, mom, infant -- who have left the home of their friends after a late-evening dinner, and decide (it's actually Dad who makes the decision) that it is too late to drive home so they must stay in a hotel instead.

The remainder of the movie has them menaced, it would seem, by the hotel itself . Yes, all the usual signifiers are present: a naughty, malfunctioning GPS; the very odd hotel (where the family is the only guest); a black cat; a sudden nosebleed; a mirror that doesn't quite reflect the image facing it; people who, out of the blue, appear and then disappear; and on and on. And on.

To call The Night a slow-burn horror/thriller is to severely understate things. For younger critics, who have not yet spent most of their life -- from The Shining onward (and backward) -- viewing stuff like this over and over, there may be something that seems half-assedly original. But not for most of the rest of us.

For quite some time, the dialog we hear most often is of the "Sleep, my love. Go to sleep" variety (Mom to babe, Dad to Mom). As the movie progresses, there is a sudden scare or two, but much of what we experience is firmly in the been-there/seen-that mode. As things grow crazier, Dad and Mom grow more witless and make ever stupider decisions -- knocking on every room of the hotel after being told that they are its only guests and yelling "Stay here; I'll be right back!" even though the first general rule of movies in the scary genre is, when things get this creepy, Don't Leave Each Other Alone!

Eventually we get nitwit bromides such as the truth will set you free, along with suggestions that maybe guilt and expiation are really behind all the machinations. Whatever. I should add that, in addition to its being boring and obvious, The Night is also downright reactionary in its view of men, women and their place in society. As I say, you can take Iranians out of Iran, but.... (Maybe this is not actually the filmmaker's view. More likely, he's hoping to get the film released in his home country, too.)

From IFC Midnight, in Persian (and very occasional English) with English subtitles, The Night opens this Friday, January 29, in theaters virtual (and maybe actual), and via streaming/VOD. Click here for more information.

In Aaron's Wolf's TAR, an L.A. landmark is fodder for some foolish, would-be horror

The idea of using Los Angeles' semi-famous La Brea Tar Pits as the sort-of setting and theme for a modern monster movie sounds promising. If only. The resulting misfire, TAR, proves a way-overlong slough through one genre cliché after another, with a script that offers dialog ranging from adequate to stupid and thus provides a decent cast with a nowhere-near-decent opportunity to even look good, let alone shine. 

I'm afraid there is but one person to blame for most of this, actor/writer/director Aaron Wolf (shown below) who appears to be a  triple threat -- but in the negative, rather than positive, meaning of that word. If TrustMovies had not agreed to review this one, he likely would have stopped watching midway, if not sooner.

Mr. Wolf (shown above) is an attractive enough performer but as co-writer (with Timothy Nuttall) and director, he allows for snail-like pacing until one wants to scream, Get on with it!, while some of the inane dialog -- particularly that involving the usual dumb, overweight and over-sexed best friend (played by poor Sandy Danto, below) -- becomes cringe-inducingly obvious and expected

The movie posits a seen-better-days business located in the area of the Pits that is now forced to close and must move out completely by the following morning or face a huge monetary payment. Simultaneously, a long gestating Tar Pitts monster is somehow unleashed and of course wreaks havoc on our gang of employees, family, lovers and friends. (Below is Timothy Bottoms as the uber-controlling paterfamilias.) 

Far too early on the electricity goes out (not simply at the location but in the writing, direction and performances, too), leaving us viewers in the usual gray, muddy semi-darkness that soon becomes boring to view but does provide the chance to fudge on any sharp, easily-seen visual effects. (The monster himself proves no big deal visually, in any case.)

Above is Tiffany Shepis, playing the employee with "psychic powers" who's not nearly as good at predicting as she imagines, and below is our old and always fun-to-watch friend Graham Greene as the local indigenous storyteller who knows the history of the "monster."

In films like this, there is sometimes fun to be had in guessing the order of who-will-survive?, but Tar doesn't generate enough interest to even manage that. Maybe 20 minutes too long, it's repetitive and tiresome: another pretty good idea for a scary movie wasted in mediocrity. But then, maybe younger folk who have not yet seen a lifetime of this kind of thing might find some fright and/or amusement here. (That's the movie's zaftig and relatively charming sex symbol, played by Nicole Alexandra Shipley, below.)

From 1091 Pictures and running 99 minutes, Tar hits digital streaming, available to purchase this coming Tuesday, October 20, and for rental the following Tuesday, October 27. To maybe find a theater or drive-in near you, click here then click on the various embedded links.

VOD/DVDebut for traumatized adolescent numbskulls in Amanda Kramer's LADYWORLD

Whew! Characters, situation, scenario, dialog, behavior and movies in general do not come much dumber than LADYWORLD, a film co-written (with Benjamin Shearn) and directed by Amanda Kramer that hit theaters earlier this month and is now available on VOD/DVD.

The pre-visual opening -- in which we hear the sounds of what might be the apocalypse or perhaps just a large, out-of-control land-mover -- is by far the best thing about the movie, after which we see the apparent results of this "event," which strands a group of girls who seem not to know each other yet one of whose birthday they are soon celebrating (as below). Ah, kids!

If you are at all familiar with the blog of TrustMovies, you'll know that he does not generally direct his ire at fledgling filmmakers, and he is trying his best not to do so here. But this is a losing battle, having just sat through what seems like the worst film he has seen in his adult life so far. It does not work on any level -- realistic, symbolic, as fable, prediction, warning, nor even, god help us, as camp.

As conceived by Ms Kramer, shown at right, these girls make almost no intelligent effort to get out of the house in which they're suddenly trapped. Even if we decide that the film is not meant to be taken realistically, then why do they seem to care so much but do so little? Except, of course, scream and yell and act in an utterly insufferable manner -- even for teens (who, as is often the case, look a decade older that they ought).

I cannot recall a movie with worse dialog. It's almost as though Kramer and Shearn are deliberately trying to set our teeth on edge, while giving their characters ever more reason to be "dramatic." There is enough screaming, yelling and stupidity here to fill a dozen Dumb and Dumbers but only a single trace of humor. (Even of the unintentional sort: Yes, it's that bad.)

Normally I'd point out a movie's cast members, but I don't want to inflict any more damage. Maybe I'm just a typical man who can't or won't appreciate what women must go through in this world, though I do wonder how many women would get behind something this wrong-headed? Comparison has been made with this film and a certain classic entitled Lord of the Flies. Well, OK. But then please refer to this one as Lord of the Gnats.

To its credit, the film does have one moment of humor, as either the filmmaker or her cinematographer (Patrick Meade Jones) captures a parody of da Vinci's The Last Supper. From MVD Entertainment Group and running 94 minutes, Ladyworld hit the street on DVD and digital yesterday, August 27 -- for purchase and (maybe) rental. 

With Josh Lobo's VERY slow-burn, would-be horror-thriller, I TRAPPED THE DEVIL, prepare to shred your disbelief

That's right: Do not simply, as they say, "suspend your disbelief." Instead, shred it, stomp on it, burn it and bury it, if you plan to even vaguely enjoy a new "scary" movie entitled I TRAPPED THE DEVIL. As though -- let's say, to begin with, one even believes in the devil -- you could actually "trap" the thing. What? The devil is to be that easily had? In any case, if you have even paid attention to the title of this movie, then the first third of the film -- the what's up here? portion -- will be quite clear to you, even if it is not to two out of three of the movie's protagonists.

These would include two brothers and one's girlfriend or maybe wife, the latter two of which, come to visit the other brother at Christmastime.

As written and directed by Josh Lobo, shown at left, once all three characters are on the same page, the rest of the film is then devoted to some very paltry discussions about morality and philosophy and various things to which said devil might be up.

The final third is, as expected, devoted to what is really locked behind that basement door, along with the requisite would-be suspense and bloodshed and -- it must be said -- the sort of heavy-duty boredom during which TrustMovies thought he would go straight put of his fucking mind having to sit through.

The leading cast members do what they can with material that is, at best, been-there/done-that. These would include AJ Bowen, above, as the bro who comes to visit; Susan Burke, below, as his wife;

and Scott Poythress (below) as the bro who's done the trapping. I've seen them all in better films, and will no doubt have this pleasure again. And I hope to eventually see another, better movie from Mr. Lobo, too. (If the finale of this film does not put old-time movie buffs in mind of Toby Dammit, the Fellini segment of Spirits of the Dead, I shall be surprised.)

Distributed by IFC Films and running just 83 minutes, I Trapped the Devil opens in a select and very limited theatrical release this coming Friday, April 26 -- at which time it will simultaneously appear on VOD nationwide.

Streaming non-recommendation: Netflix's crappy German time-travel series, DARK

Yes, I know that conventional wisdom  has long insisted that Germans (and German movies) have no sense of humor. But Look Who's Back, to use just one recent example, disproves that theory entirely. Unfortunately, the idea bounced back into my mind while viewing the dismal new Netflix-produced German series entitled DARK, which is now available pretty much worldwide via the cable behemoth. There's not a moment of levity, lightness or anything approaching humor anywhere to be seen in these ten tiresome, derivative and annoying 50-minute episodes.

This is one of those series chock full of pseudo-science, pseudo-religion, pseudo-philosophy, and pseudo-entertainment that keep promising some kind of coalescence that never arrives. Worse, it consistently trips over its own ideas. All about time travel, supposedly made possible every 33 years via our not-quite reliable calendar, it posits a bunch of kidnapped children used in some experiment (above) to facilitate this time travel who keep turning up dead (the experiments evidently continually fail).

And yet, as we see throughout the series, time travel in this sodden little German town is not just possible but is increasingly discovered by a number of its citizens (the one above, for instance), who simply open a couple of doors in a cave beneath the earth (see poster, top) and find themselves either backward or forward in time by those 33 years.

Yet the movement of those citizens is certainly well known to the "experimenter," so what's the point of keeping up the experiments on that rather silly-looking machine? This piece of nonsense is only the worst example of stupid plotting that relies completely on the viewer's inability to stop and "think" for a moment or two. There's so little logic in so much that happens here (the dead come back to life, along with other nonsensical dreck) that you might as well place your brain on hold as you watch.

Yes, the series offers its titular "noir-ish" themes, cinematography, ugliness and gloom. All this is offered up with the kind of expert professionalism we now expect out of Netflix. But then it merely keeps repeating the stuff, over and over, until one has to ask (to quote Peggy Lee), Is that all there is?

Nuclear energy is also on view here, and is part and parcel of the town's problems, as are other things like lust and love (unrequited, of course). The characters are as sullen and sodden a bunch as you will have ever seen in any TV or cable series. The only humor finally arises mostly from how utterly lacking in any the series actually is. It almost becomes something of an inside joke. You can image the producers, writers and directors watching the day's shoot and suddenly saying, "Oh, my god -- that actor just smiled. Delete that moment immediately!"

The performers are mostly good-looking and get the job done, but as we keep moving from 2019 back to 1986 and then (in the last three episodes) 1953 and piecing together exactly who is the grandfather of this one or the mother of that one, not only our interest but any chance to care much about these people dissipates. Also, the series lasts twice as long as it needs to, thanks to its very slow pacing and the camera constantly stopping to focus on a character's angst for maybe two to three times as long as necessary to get the point across. (Were the filmmakers worried that we might miss the abject "seriousness" of all their fine work?)

The finale helps in no way whatsoever, except to begin a whole new section in what I imagine is the year 2052. The series keeps promising some closure, none of which ever arrives. Dark exists to simply string us along. Perhaps that's its point, but if so, then it's mostly for folk who enjoy being diddled without ever reaching a climax. (Think of it as the television equivalent of Tantra Yoga.)

Netflix has just announced that it is renewing Dark for a second season. Good luck -- but count me out. These eight hours-plus have now taken their place as my biggest waste of time this year.

Daniel Di Grado's ALENA: The Swedes attempt to make a horror movie (and fall on their face)

Supposedly based on a graphic novel by Kim W Andersson, the movie ALENA offers just about all those "graphic novel" tropes, from utterly-obvious to simple-minded-in-the-extreme to piled-mile-high-with-cliches. Watching this film -- for anyone over the age of, say, 21 who has seen a few other horror movies in his or her lifetime -- is rather like serving out a prison sentence that at least offers up a few enticing visuals and lasts only 83 minutes. As co-adapted and directed by Daniel Di Grado, the film pretty much defines the word predictable.

Mr. Di Grado, pictured at left, hands us themes and scenes such as bullying, mean girls, the lonely outsider with a troubled history, deserted classrooms and showers, stalking, and a little lesbian sex and then stirs them all together for maximum effort and minimum fun. The only at all surprising thing here is that our "heroine," the titular Alena (played by Amalia Holm, shown below at Lacrosse) almost never seems in the least concerned about the bullying or possible harm that might come to her. And for good reason. To suggest that she can take care of herself quite well, thank you, is to put it mildly.

Our Alena has a "friend" -- the identity and actuality of which should be apparent from the second time we see her, if not the very first -- who helps (or maybe hinders) Alena along.

She is also surrounded by those mean girls (below), in particular one who proves so very entitled and nasty that you just know she going to get hers -- and big time!

And, yes, there is a new best friend, below, who maybe wants a bit more than mere friendship. As usual, the teachers are weak or foolish or not nearly enough concerned, and if there is a cliche in all this that Mr. Di Grado managed to leave unearthed, I missed it.

Surely the Swedes (the film was made in Sweden) can do better than this so far as something horrifying is concerned. Otherwise, please stick to just about any other genre.

From the KimStim Collection via Icarus Films, the DVD of Alena hits the street this coming Tuesday, May 9 -- for purchase and/or rental. You've been warned.

The Onetti family's very low-end Argentine giallo, FRANCESCA, hits Blu-ray, DVD & CD

Putting the "lo" in giallo, this bizarre example of how-did-it-ever-get-made-let-alone-released? Italian giallo homage hit home video late last month. TrustMovies is catching up with it only now, and is posting this short review simply to give his readers warning. FRANCESCA is such a poorly-made movie -- flat, tiresome, pretentious and very nearly senseless -- that I can see no reason, even for die-hard giallo fans, to actually view it.

Though it cribs from Dante, that great Italian poet would cringe at how his work has been degraded. Aping the style and look of the 1970s (when giallo reigned supreme), the film was actually made, so far as I can determine, in 2015. I suppose this is an accomplishment of sorts. But the movie's plot is so minimal and dumb -- a bunch of murder victims strung together mostly by silliness -- and the screenplay a total embarrassment (plodding and hugely expository), that its co-writer (with his brother, Nicolás) and director, Luciano Onetti (shown at left) deserves little more than a loud, large raspberry. Granted that giallo is itself a rather low-end genre, but this is ridiculous.

The movie's only interesting moments come at its beginning and end, when the screen seems to literally open up vertically (and close back at the end), as a sliver of light expands slowly into full widescreen. What is on the screen, however, isn't worth that nifty opening/closing effect.

The writing and direction are amateur in the extreme, as are most of the performances. The film is arty-farty, as well. (Piano- playing in leather gloves: has any pianist ever managed that very well?)  The Onetti family -- who contributed to the writing, direction, music and acting -- has a lot to answer for.

Running a thankfully brief 80 minutes and being released by the only-too-appropriately-named Unearthed Films, Francesca comes to home video via the sometimes more discerning MVD Entertainment Group. 

Joel Potrykus & his loony-tune protagonists return with THE ALCHEMIST COOKBOOK

TrustMovies was a big fan of the movie Buzzard, bizarre as it was, and so he looked forward hugely to whatever its writer/director, Joel Potrykus might offer up next. Well, that "whatever" opens this week, and it is something quite else.

I have not viewed a movie this annoying and utterly unengaging in a very long time. In the couple of days since I watched it, I've been mulling over what made it such an negative experience for me. To that end I've come up with a theory or two.

In Buzzard, Mr. Potrykus (shown at left) had a perhaps equally crazy and unlikable protagonist. But there, we see much more of the guy's interaction with others. We also learn much more about him. In THE ALCHEMIST COOKBOOK, our sociopathic jerk protagonist (named Sean and played by Ty Hickson, shown below and further below) is someone we learn next to nothing about in the course of this 82-minute movie -- except that he is partial to devil worship and seems to be trying to conjur Belial all on his own. What Mr. Hickson is asked to do, he does just fine. Unfortunately, he is asked to do damned little.

The character of Sean begins crazy and only goes further down that same path. As a character, he's pretty nearly a cipher. As for interaction, he has a friend (played by Amari Cheatom) who visits and brings him supplies, but their interaction basically amounts to the rather tried-and-tired "Fuck you" "Fuck you, too" sort of thing.

There is one scene involving the wrong kind of cat food -- yes, there's a cat here (above, center), and also eventually an opossum (or phonetically/ ungrammatically, a possum) -- in which both actors are allowed to show us something that approaches actual "behavior." They do, and briefly the film comes to life. And then it's back to the basics of would-be scares and horror -- of which there are practically none. Unless you scare and get horrified very easily (for instance, if you imagine that The Conjuring was the least bit shiver-provoking).

I'm almost ready to suggest that Mr. Potryus is trying to update Blair Witch and conflate it with any number of other witchcraft and let's-go-into-the-woods-'cause-they're-scary movies that we've seen over the past decade or so. He manages a few scenes that hint at scares, but all this could also be going on only in our protagonist's mind. Either way, there is very little real content here, though the music is often deafeningly loud and ugly. For my taste, The Alchemist Cookbook is a distinct come-down from Buzzard. But maybe you'll have a different reaction. Good luck.

The movie is being distributed by Oscilloscope Laboratories, which is opening the film in an unusual manner this Friday, October 7, when The Alchemist Cookbook will be available worldwide for pay-what-you-wish via BitTorrent Now, before (or in one case, simultaneous with) its screening debut in (very) select theaters across the country. You can find those various theaters by clicking here and scrolling down.