Clayton Witmer's overlong, tiresome psycho-creature feature, THE ARBORS, arrives via VOD

You've got to hand it to any filmmaker with balls big enough to offer up -- after giving us a way-too-long two hours of genre-jumping nonsense that grows worse as it goes along-- a priceless line of dialog: "Can't this all just be over?!" To which you're likely to reply, Oh, yes, god -- please! Yet exactly that's what a fellow by the name of Clayton Witmer does, as director and co-writer, in his film THE ARBORS, which TrustMovies admits starts out well enough, as we perceive that quite a number of things are amiss in the small town in which the film takes place. We and our hero Ethan (a remarkably passive guy) notice a group of workers in bio-hazard suits just off the nearby road. Soon Ethan is asking his young neighbor to stop throwing rocks at his mailbox, and then he has an odd, not-quite dinner with his brother and his family.

By the ten-minute mark, we've noticed something that, from the little we see of it, just might be some alien life form. And then we hear a TV evangelist doing the usual proclaiming about "last days." Sounds pretty promising, right? If only.

Mr. Witmer, pictured at right, gives us one good jump scare, before settling in to make his film as deadly dull as possible, given its promising set-up. Instead of proceeding in a way that anyone except a complete numskull would do (alert the authorities, any authority), Ethan takes into pseudo-captivity this clearly dangerous creature -- think The Hidden, if you can remember back to 1987, but without any of the action and gleeful fun of that groundbreaking film. Our creature then grows bigger and begins doing very nasty things.

The Arbors is written, directed and acted in the kind of faux naturalistic style that instead of seeming "real," comes off as all the more "fake" -- mostly because the dialog falls somewhere between screenwriting that's merely so-so and genuinely bad improvisation.

And it is not only Ethan himself who moves, speaks and acts like a person somewhere on the autistic-and/or-drugged-up spectrum; most of the other cast members seem a little too close to zombie status, too. You keep wanting to kick them and their film into something approaching action. 

By the time those "clues" start building up as to what is really going on here, and the would-be psychological angle takes over, that psychology will seem like the dumbest thing about the movie. Unfortunately, it is also the film's entire point.

Performances certainly match the long, dark, tiresome style, with Drew Matthews (above) sleep-inducing as Ethan, and Ryan Davenport (below, left) slightly more lively as his brother Shane. Especially ludicrous is the scene between Ethan and his ex-girlfriend, in which she pleads with this catatonic nutcase to run away with her. But then this entire movie seems to exist in some vacuum of utter unreality.

Well, this is Mr. Witmer's first full-length attempt, so we've got to give him a break, even if he has taken a workable, if not terribly original, concept and fleshed it out with a way-too-long, way-too-tiresome treatment. Brevity, it turns out, is not simply the soul of wit, it's the soul of most genre films, too. Note to budding filmmakers: Make certain that the amount of your content comes reasonably close to the length of your running time.

From Gravitas Ventures, two full hours in length, The Arbors hit VOD last week on March 26. Click here then scroll down for more information.

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. 

Arrow Video's Blu-ray debut for Carol Reed's 1963 almost thriller, THE RUNNING MAN

OK: Carol Reed, shown below, may have been working at less-than-full-throttle during his filming of the 1963 movie, THE RUNNING MAN. (This idea is borne out -- by one of the people who assisted Reed -- on the Bonus Features section of Arrow Video's new Blu-ray edition.) Still, second-rate Reed is as good if not better than the first-rate work of many other lesser directors. Further, although a number of people associated with the film seem to have found the novel on which the film was based not so hot, filming went ahead as planned.

Fortunately, the movie has three very attractive and talented stars in the leading roles -- Laurence Harvey (below, left), Lee Remick (below, right) and Alan Bates (below, center) -- and so performance-wise, the movie holds up nicely, as well. The good screenplay by John Mortimer, from the novel by Shelley Smith, tells the tale of a clever enough insurance scam -- one that could hardly be managed today, thanks to the ever-presence of those blasted security cameras and the inability to keep one's face even remotely secret -- in which a fellow (Harvey) and his recently wed wife (Remick) seem to be pursued throughout Europe (mostly Spain) by a wily insurance investigator (Bates).

The suspense here, such as it is, stems from the seeming ability of our not-very-heroic hero to keep his identity a secret, and yet, fortunately, things are not always as they seem -- which is all for the best here, since the bare-bones story does not have a whole lot of surprise in store. Harvey was always best at playing a rotter (which according to a couple of the folk interviewed here, he was in real life, too), and he's just fine in that role once again. Remick was probably as fine an actress as mid-20th-Century film gave us -- every bit as classy, talented and beautiful as Grace Kelly, but without any of that accompanying stiffness (except when needed) -- as natural and graceful a performer as you could want. Bates, who was barely at the beginning of his long and prosperous acting career, makes a fine foil for Harvey and an even better near-romantic lead.

The wonderful location photography makes one want to visit Spain, even if many of the brunette supporting actresses here seems to be trying their best to look like Liz Taylor (this was the year of Cleopatra, remember). All in all, you could do a lot worse than watch The Running Man for its starry cast and yummy scenery alone.  From Arrow Academy (distributed in the USA via MVD Visual) and running 103 minutes, the movie, in its Blu-ray debut, hit the street this week -- for purchase and (I would hope) rental. As usual with Arrow, the Bonus features are well worth viewing/hearing, too -- especially if you want to learn more about the habits of the late Mr. Harvey.

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.

A Netflix no-no from Spain: Gonzalo Bendala's nitwit thriller, WHEN ANGELS SLEEP

That world-famous (and now seeming to exist just about everywhere in the world) streaming site Netflix has gifted us with lots of worthwhile movies to view, including more and more of which the company has itself distributed. Every so often, though, a real clunker appears in the mix, one that's dumb enough to make a warning worthwhile. Such a film is the new WHEN ANGELS SLEEP, written and directed by Gonzalo Bendala.

The original Spanish poster for the movie, shown below, asks the question: Cuando los angeles duermen, quien nos protege? which translates, TrustMovies believes, to When angels sleep, who protects us?  Here's a better and more useful question the movie-maker might have asked: When every decision made by every character in your film is completely stupid, how can your audience be expected to give a shit?

By the end of this 91-minute would-be dramatic thriller, I found myself talking back aloud to the screen so often, usually saying "For god's sake, don't do that!" that I had pretty much gone hoarse. This is particularly too bad because the film's cast deserves much better.

Lead actor Julián Villagrán (shown below, of Extraterrestrial) plays one of the heads of a Spanish insurance company who is trying to get home in time for his young daughter's birthday party. He is several hours' drive away, however, and so he makes just about every dumb decision possible in order -- or so it begins to appear -- not to get there.

Then we're introduced to a teenage girl who apparently has parent problems. She hates 'em, but from what we're allowed to see, they're merely typically clueless-about-teens, while she seems angry/ugly enough for hospitalization. As played by Ester Expósito (shown at top and below, of the recent and much better Netflix series, Elite), the young lady quickly tries your patience to the point where you're dismayed to realize that you'd be more than happy to see her dead.

And then we have our anti-hero's wife (Marian Álvarez, below), who -- in accepting her hubby's nonsensical excuses while also accepting the advances of next-door neighbor who's helping with that birthday party in lieu of dad --  seems to alternate between dumb and dumber. And if you imagine that the supporting characters are any better, give it up. They're not only just as dumb -- but a whole lot nastier.

Except the police. They're stupider than everyone else put together. Please: Tell me that Spain's cops, including the one in charge of the others here, are smarter than this?! Somebody? Anybody? Guess not. The really weird thing about this movie is that its ending is simply terrific. Or would be, if what preceded it had a trace of actual truth and did not seem instead to have been manipulated within an inch of its life.

This denouement could hardly be darker -- or more directly contradicting one's hopeful idea of any justice existing in our world. There's zero to be found here, which is a difficult, but sometimes salutary thing to accept. Unfortunately, instead of giving us reason/evidence to have to deal with this thesis, we get an uber crappy movie to precede this wonderfully dank and existential ending, one that is worthy, yes, of Beckett and/or Céline.

Streaming now via Netflix, When Angels Sleep, won't put you to sleep. But it will probably make you plenty angry -- and for more bad reasons than good ones.

MUSEO: Alonso Ruizpalacios' follow-up to Güeros hits South Florida theaters today

When Güeros, the first-full-length film from Mexican writer-director Alonso Ruizpalacios reached U.S. theaters back in 2014, it looked as if a stunning new talent was upon us via this tale of disaffected Mexican youth told in a fresh and exemplary manner.

Ruiz Palacios (shown below) is back in 2018, with a new movie entitled MUSEO, which is again about disaffected youth. But here, that youth is lingering well into middle age.

Our "hero," Juan (also known derisively as "Shorty"), is a spoiled, entitled product of the Mexican bourgeoisie circa the mid 1980s.

As played with his usual sexy charm, coupled this time to more negative aspects of his character, by Gael García Bernal (below), Juan is quite the little asshole, as he and his partner-in-crime, Benjamin (Leonardo Ortizgris, two photos below) plan and then execute a whopping burglary (based on a real incident) involving a number of priceless artifacts located in a Mexican museum.

Folk who saw the recent hybrid documentary/narrative film, American Animals, should immediately note the similarities between the two. in which a heist of museum artifacts is attempted by some hugely unprofessional thieves. American Animals was pretty amazing: smart, beautifully acted, directed and written, with a wonderful combination of narrative characters and their actual counterparts in reality. It was thrilling, funny and bizarre, with a style that turned it into an art film without its even trying.

Museo, however, clearly wants to be an "art film," and so announces its intentions, as well as its themes and concerns, with a little too heavy a hand. It is certainly an interesting exploration of the Mexican culture of its time, along with the everlasting Hispanic ability to spoil its male children rotten, even as its makes clear (a little too clear) that we can rarely be sure of a person's true motives, including those we think we know best.

Ruizpalacios gives us a combo of history, philosophy, psychology, and a kind of heist thriller that would be much more thrilling had it been shortened by 20-to-30 minutes. Instead the movie just goes on and one and on, giving us an entire section devoted to a supposed "contact," a night club, and an over-the-hill performer (nicely played by Leticia Brédice) -- clearly someone on whom Juan has had a major crush -- that may be interesting but drains the suspense and pace rather crushingly.

Better is the scene with Simon Russell Beale (above, left) playing an international "fence" who must apprise our boys of the stupidity of their actions and expectations.

Clearly, Ruizpalacios had a much larger budget this time around (the credit sequence alone looks quite ravishing), but the spirit, freshness and life -- not to mention the ability to offer up so many ideas and themes so offhandedly yet strongly -- that inhabited Güeros has mostly gone missing. Well... next time!

From Vitagraph Films and running two hours and eight minutes, Museo opened today, Friday, September 21, here in South Florida -- in Miami at the AMC Aventura 24 and the Coral Gables Art Cinema, in Fort Lauderdale at the Cinema Paradiso-Hollywood, and in West Palm Beach at the Lake Worth Playhouse.  Click here and scroll down to find all the currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters.

Lovers of unintentional camp, rejoice! RUSSIAN DOLL (A Thriller) hits DVD

The box art for RUSSIAN DOLL explains (or maybe proclaims) the movie to be, via its subtitle description, (A Thriller) -- in parentheses, yet, in case, I guess, we might want to consider this as parenthetical. Indeed there is not a single thrill to be found here. There is, however, a whole lot of genuine laughs, most of these completely unintentional, I fear.

Which means that this movie takes its place among those hallowed few films that rise, completely of their own accord, into the realm of unintentional camp.

As written and directed by Ed Gaffney (shown at right, whose earlier work as screenwriter, The Perfect Wedding, this reviewer thoroughly enjoyed), Russian Doll begins and ends with a genuine surprise. The first of these turns what has initially looked just slightly off-kilter into something that makes perfect sense. The final surprise has to do with identity, and I admit that I did not at all expect it. So I applaud. Very good, Mr. Gaffney!

The problem, however, is that between these two surprises, almost everything else seems bat-shit crazy, including the performances of much of the cast, especially our leading lady, Melanie Brockmann Gaffney (I suspect she is the filmmaker's wife), who, whatever other talents she possesses, acting is not among them, and Jason T. Gaffney (the filmmaker's son?), who was so very good in his rom-com role in The Perfect Wedding, but here plays a villain (shown below with his victim, played by Aly Trasher) who keeps making us laugh. Unintentionally, I admit. But that's not what villains are supposed to do.

The plot has to do with a theatrical play, the authorship of which may have been stolen; a sudden kidnapping (that actually makes very little sense overall); and a theatrical production of said play (named Russian Doll) that is occurring simultaneously with the kidnapping and a budding romance between our heroine, a police detective (Ms Gaffney, at left on poster, top) and a very pretty, sexy young woman with whom the detective's mom (Kristine Sutherland, below) has set her up.

All comes together in as clunky a manner as the above description sounds, with the kidnapper and his kidnapee especially hilarious, as the latter keeps escaping and the former keeps telling her that he's going to kill her if she keeps this up. She does, of course, and he doesn't. Somewhere along the way, the filmmaker inserts a song, the lyrics of which prove as awful (and as funny) as everything else on display. (We happened to have the English subtitles on as we watched and so got a double dose, aural and visual.)

At one point or another, my spouse and I began laughing aloud at the increasingly silly goings-on and, as can happen with this kind of laughter, it simply grew and grew until we were actually having a pretty good time. Add to this the automatic corrective that a truly awful movie can provide to just about everything else you've seen, mediocre on downward. Russian Doll managed this, and I am grateful. Now I truly understand what bad looks like. (That's the other leading lady, played by Marem Hassler, above, right, and Sarah Hollis, below, right, as our heroine's police partner, who tries to be smart and sassy but is defeated at every turn by the script.)

Distributed by Wolfe Video and running at least a short 82 minutes, the movie hits the street on DVD tomorrow, Tuesday, April 17 -- for purchase and/or maybe rental. To all of you -- performers, filmmakers, audiences -- good luck!

In Steven Soderbergh's UNSANE, nitwittery hits a ripe new height

You've got to hand it to Steven Soderbergh. When he's good (as in last year's Logan Lucky), he's very good, and when he fails, he does it big-time: no halfway-there for this guy! His new movie, UNSANE, is as ripe a piece of unintentional camp silliness that we've seen in, well, let's just say it makes that recent Halle Berry thriller Kidnap look like a classic of the genre. Word has it that Unsane was filmed entirely via cell phone (see shot of the director, below).

If so, congratulations --  though the film is nowhere as good as either King Kelly or Tangerine, both of which were "cell-phone" precursors of this overlong, let's-toss-believability-out-the-window mess.

The mess is less due to Mr. Soderbergh, who at least knows how to move things along, than to its writers -- Jonathan Bernstein and James Greer -- who take a smart, timely idea (a rehab center that entraps its clients and then won't let them go until their insurance payments have expired) and then fills it with such stupid and nitwit details (male and female patients sleep in the same room?) and ridiculous coincidence that all credibility is soon left for dead.

The film stars Claire Foy (above), who is onscreen for practically the entire movie and does a yeoman job of "trying." But her character is so thoroughly manufacturer-to-fit-the-bill that, again, any credence or caring is lost to behavior that is rather unlike any seen either on screen or in the world as we know it. (The character is repeatedly warned what her violent behavior will bring her, and so she engages in it like there's no tomorrow.)

This makes her rather the equal of the film's villain, played with enough relish to fill three movies (and a whole lot of hot dogs) by Joshua Leonard, above, who has been quite good elsewhere (Humpday), and I'm sure will rise again.

For a short while (this is the most believable section of the film), we are meant to wonder if our girl is sane or not so, but it soon becomes clear that she's the victim. Subsidiary characters are the equal, in terms of believability, of the leads: There's the unhelpful matron, played by Polly McKie (above, left) and another patient, limned by the always-fun Juno Temple (below), who exists simply and only to annoy our heroine.

The most interesting character, a patient who is really an investigative reporter planning to "out" this rehab center, is played by Jay Pharoah (below, right), but what this fellow can so easily accomplish (rather obviously yet without anyone noticing) just adds to the film's foolishness.

Yes, we also get that scene of running down totally unpopulated hallways (this is yet another "thriller" in which a medical facility seems to have lost its entire staff), and a heroine who can stab the bad guy but then forgets to do it again so he is incapacitated. And on and on it goes.

In retrospect, I think this may be the perfect movie for our Trump era -- in which everybody (on both sides of the screen) is either sleazy or stupid. Good luck to us all.

From Bleecker Street and running a too-long 97 minutes the movie opens (pretty much nationwide, I believe) this Friday, March 23. Click here then scroll down to find the theater(s) nearest you.