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| Betty Gilpin in The Hunt, also starring Hilary Swank and Emma Roberts. |
Back when
we had the ‘mom and pop’ video stores, it was up to Jason and Freddy to scare
the shit out of us if you dared to rent those tapes. Of course that was only
until you graduated to Faces of Death
or Guinea Pig. Nowadays things are a
bit different because whereas independent film is losing people over its
no-budget shot-on-video non-quality, people get scared by A24 and/or Blumhouse,
the latter of which offers the two great films reviewed bellow that you should
not miss.
Reviews:
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| Elisabeth Moss is prominent in The Invisible Man poster. |
The Invisible Man (2020)
Cecilia
(Elisabeth Moss) is a victim of abuse. Her husband, an ultra-rich optical
illusions specialist is a controlling monster that hits her and could have been
raping her as well but this doesn’t become very clear (it wouldn’t matter
anyway as the extent to which one is abusing is secondary to the fact that he
is actually an abuser, essentially a monster). He is controlling the way she
lives as well as the way she thinks (and in order to achieve that he goes as
far as drugging her), the archetypical domestic prison scenario that is so
common. One day she manages to escape and seek solace to a friend’s place (the
sympathetic Aldis Hodge), leaving everything behind and cutting all connections
to her previous life. A few days later she learns that her monster of a husband
has killed herself, leaving her a fortune as well. However, it soon becomes
apparent that she is stalked by an invisible assailant that destroys her life.
Could it be her dead husband?
From the
40 or so movies that were spawned by the ‘Universal Monsters’ period, The Invisible Man (1933) remains one of
my very favorite ones, so I was really curious to see what Universal Pictures
(credited here as a presenter) had to offer with this remake from Blumhouse
Productions, written and directed by the modern master of the genre Leigh
Whannell [Upgrade (2018)]. The end
result does not disappoint.
More of a
psychological thriller about abuse, rather than a straight-out monster movie
(there is no monster, the assailant is human), this utilizes an excellent
performance from its female lead (it is really a one-woman show), who is
essentially the ‘scream queen’ of the present generation, a term that shouldn’t
be used lightly and for all b-movie non-professional actresses, but rather for
Oscar-worthy artists such as Elisabeth Moss. Her portrayal of an abuse victims
that is so wounded and destroyed that she appears to be out of her mind is the
best acting I’ve seen in ages.
Filled
with artistry (the long scene in which the Invisible Man is offing many guards
in a psychiatric ward is the work of a master), this is engaging horror at its
best and it should be missed by none. Made on a $7 million budget, it grossed
an impressive $126.1 million.
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| The Hunt (2020) poster. |
The Hunt (2020)
Strangers
that they only thing they have in common is being ‘simple folk’ or otherwise
Republicans, are hunted by rich Liberal elites for sport, in what appears to be
the middle of nowhere, U.S.A., but it’s actually Croatia dressed up as
Arkansas, in this modern take on The Most
Dangerous Game.
The plot
sounds simplistic, and at times it is thankfully so, but there is a big twist
in the middle that will leave you in awe. However, its strengths lie in its
clever satire of the Liberal and Republican stereotypes, from rich C.E.O.s to
conspiracy theorists, essentially making a dystopian portrait of modern
America.
The fact
that director Craig Zobel [Compliance
(2012)] plays many proportions of it in ‘tongue in cheek’ manner (the
outrageous gore, or some of the humorous acting) never makes this a comedy, as
what it really is in its heart is the greatest modern Orwellian film we’ve
seen.
Made by
Blumhouse on a budget of $14 million, this was originally scheduled for release
on September 2019 but due to the mass shootings in Dayton the previous month,
the release was held in order to not cause further controversy, essentially
becoming ‘The most talked about movie of the year is one that no one’s actually
seen’ as per the tagline, until it was released in March 2020 when it grossed a
mere $6.5 million, a flop that is attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic.
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