Director: Agustin Diaz Yanes
Writer: Agustin Diaz Yanes
Stars: Susana Abaitua, Andres Gertrudix, Iraia Elias

Synopsis: A young Spanish civil guard goes undercover within ETA, the Basque separatist group, spending over a decade locating their hideouts in the South of France.

Europe is a patchwork group of countries that fought for centuries in order to draw the maps that exist today. In the second half of the 20th century, Europe saw a great deal of upheaval brought about by political movements of ethnic or cultural minorities that saw their chance to take back their ancestral lands in order to self govern. The Balkan nations after the fall of communism fought and redrew their corner of Europe to better reflect the cultural makeup of the region. Northern Irish peoples have wished for a long time to not be a part of the United Kingdom and to join with the rest of their island, the Republic of Ireland. For centuries Chechnya has attempted to buck the rule of Russia and establish their own autonomy. The same goes for the Basque people whose ancestral home is a patch of land that is encompassed by four provinces of Northern Spain and three provinces of Southern France.

She Walks in Darkness is a film that uses historical cases of violence perpetrated by the Basque separatist group ETA against the government of Spain. The film uses history as a basis for the story and not the true story of any one person within the Civil Guard, a national police force, or ETA. Instead of “based on a true story,” the filmmakers opted for a phrase like, this could be one of the many stories.

It’s a bold choice not to base the film on any one account. It’s kind of like a lot of films set during World War II. There are people present at historical events, but those people may be a fabrication or amalgam of people who existed. It gives the filmmakers more room to play with the tension and the suspense of the story. In many ways it also prevents someone from calling out falsities. The assassins who reenact real killings are never named, so that it’s less about the people who perpetrated the killings than the fact that they happened in that way.

Though, for a story about a sting of this magnitude and dedicated work, the film feels a bit dull. The tension is too thin in many scenes where it’s supposed to be overwhelming. There are some tense scenes, which include the opening. Before we even meet Amaia (Susana Abaitua), we watch her as she silently hands over the keys to a car to two men. The men drive away and Amaia goes on with her day as a teacher, which is intercut with scenes of a politician leaving city hall to get a meal. It’s kids singing and then the death song of bullets as the assassin does his duty and gets away.

It’s probably a problem with the period that the film encompasses. The main sting operation takes over a decade to come to fruition. There is a lot of waiting and investigative police work that goes into the operation. It feels as if we could have seen a couple of flashbacks, but stayed in the moments where Amaia closes in on the locations of the zulos, secret caches of weapons and materials, to give us more dramatic tension. It’s almost as if Amaia has no conflict or tension with her. Even with Amaia’s fiance’s all too subtle attempts to get her back to their real world, the job feels like there’s no great questions for Amaia. She’s a true believer from the beginning and rarely wavers. All of the characters are very black and white in that way. Their motivations are gray, but their actions are on those two poles.

She Walks in Darkness is an intriguing piece of historical fiction. There is enough to it that it will keep your attention. It’s a film that does the procedural and archival footage elements well. It just feels like we are kept at an emotional arms length most of the time. We never really have a deep affection for characters on either side. It feels like the film could be much tighter and have had a smaller scope and could have been something to behold. It is worth the watch, though, if you have a curiosity about this piece of Spanish history.

Grade: C

Directors: Todd Demong, Phil Johnston, Katie Shanahan
Writers: Phil Johnston, Meg Favreau
Stars: Margo Martindale, Johnny Vegas, Emilia Clarke

Synopsis: Two orphans join forces with a family of magical animals to save their city from the powerful Mr. and Mrs. Twit, the meanest, smelliest, nastiest people in the world.

Author Roald Dahl’s fictional worlds value comeuppance for characters deemed rude. He created many stories and characters where truly horrific fates befell people. The thing is, the fates stuck. The baddest of the bad didn’t learn their lessons, they were smote by the righteous. The most despicable of Dahl’s creations, the Twits, were so awful that the people who knew them cheered their deaths. The film, The Twits, attempts to take this story in a different direction.

Much of Phil Johnston and Meg Favreau’s script focuses on empathy. A large plot device is that Beesha (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) and Bubsy (Ryan Anderson Lopez) can speak to the imprisoned Muggle-Wumps, creatures needed by the Twits to produce an energy source from their tears, because of their capacity for empathy. These two, the other orphans at the orphanage, and Mr. Napkin (Phil Johnston), their caretaker, seem to be the only people in town with the capacity for any empathy, though.

This story gets existentially bleak when we see the politics at play in the town. The Twits run for mayor of Triperot on a platform that these “others,” orphans and the current city administration, have stolen wealth right out from under everyone by not allowing Twitlandia, the Twits dream amusement park, to open. They use the same straw man tactics that have swayed voters to elect populist candidates the world over. Just like in our lives, it works and the Twits gain the power they need to do as they please. Even with the moral of the story to choose empathy over selfishness, you kind of wish these kids didn’t and let the Twits be taken down by the “Dreaded Shrinks.”

The story’s focus on bringing moral complexity is also given a boost at the details of what family can mean. In a scene that feels like Pixar in its heyday, Beesha is getting a pep talk from Mary Muggle-Wump (Natalie Portman) about accepting the family she’s got. Mary works up to getting Beesha to admit that she deserves love. You almost get whiplash as the gross-out humor is so rampant that you feel like there isn’t any substance to the film besides Twits=bad, orphans=good, but this little tidbit hits you in the chest. There are a few moments like this weaved in and out of the story, it just always feels a little out of place, if affecting.

The animation effects are the real thrill to the film. Each character has a unique design and you can almost smell the stench of the environment through your television. There are several scenes where it looks like a camera rig was attached to a running character, used to greatest effect when Mrs. Twit is in hot pursuit. The other animated effect that brings a  strange and wonderful joy to the film are the dance moves of several characters. Mr. Napkin had his dance cut off way too soon, but the shoulder shimmy made it seem like it was going to be something truly special. The same with an unnamed townswoman present when several people bail the Twits out of jail. She dances like no one’s watching to the strange beat of a homemade marimba and you won’t be able to take your eyes off her.

The Twits is filled with disgusting humor and visuals to match. Yet, it tries to have its ickiness with a bit of emotional heft. A scene where there’s confusion between the words diarrhea and diorama is a bit nauseating, if clever in its wordplay. In many ways this is pale in comparison to many other animated films, but in a strange way it also works. The Twits is an able adaptation of its source adding some much needed empathy to a story that lacks much of it.

Grade: C

Director: Scott Derrickson
Writer: Scott Derrickson, C. Robert Cargill
Stars: Mason Thames, Madeleine McGraw, Ethan Hawke

Synopsis: As Finn, now 17, struggles with life after his captivity, his sister begins receiving calls in her dreams from the black phone and seeing disturbing visions of three boys being stalked at a winter camp known as Alpine Lake.

Blumhouse is on yet another attempt at making a new horror franchise stick beyond its first film with Black Phone 2. The sequel to a rather successful start with 2021’s Black Phone brings audiences to 1982. Helmed again by director Scott Derrickson, The Grabber (Ethan Hawke) is back and doing his best to evoke Freddy Krueger. With its welcome use of Super 8 footage to nail the dreamlike world the film takes audiences into, there’s not enough within the film itself to warrant a sequel. Its repetitive story points and on-the-nose ’80s slang prevent Black Phone 2 from reaching the level of unease of its first installment.

For those wondering how The Grabber is still around to justify a sequel, he now exists in a world like something out of A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. His grasp on his victims is still strong, even impacting a now-teenaged Finney (Mason Thames) and his younger sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw). From the start, it’s apparent just how deeply Finney is scarred from his previous encounter with The Grabber—getting in bloody fistfights at school and secretly smoking joints while his family sleeps. But it didn’t just alter his life; Gwen has been experiencing nightmares that feel all too real to her. And given her interest in spirits and ghouls, she’s labeled as a weird kid, similarly to how her brother is treated.

These nightmares of Gwen’s get worse and worse as nights blend together. She finds herself unsure of what is real and what is fake, with the only person understanding the torment being her brother, who would rather forget everything he has gone through than face it. When both begin to hear phones ringing in the distance, Gwen seeks out whatever information is being relayed to her, while Finney answers with a simple, “I can’t help you.” Derrickson explores both Finney and Gwen well, while making Black Phone 2 more centered on Gwen’s story as she explores these psychic powers she’s developing, leading her to uncover information about unsolved disappearances at a Christian youth camp that holds a connection to Finney and Gwen in tragic ways.

While Derrickson is exploring Gwen’s nightmares is when Black Phone 2 is at its most engaging, creating unsettling, blood-soaked moments giving audiences a peek into the past of not only the camp but specifically The Grabber. Using grainy footage to put Gwen in the past allows the audience to feel as helpless as Gwen is to what she’s being put through. These nightmare moments are disturbing, but as the film goes on, they become one too many. While the film’s final act is where Gwen’s two worlds combine, it’s such a step away from what made the first effective—a realistic and terrifying child abduction that mostly works in the realm of tangible fears. Finney often gets his trauma pushed aside to explore more victims of The Grabber, not allowing his character to wrap his head around his experiences.

Where Black Phone 2 excels is in its performance from McGraw, but it’s not enough to keep this film from being flat-out boring. While The Black Phone had its own issues, the story felt engaging because it’s a human fear every child—and even adult—has experienced: being abducted so close to home by a man with a scary van, and being held in an unknown location with no way of reaching your loved ones. The choice to take this film into a new realm with supernatural elements takes away from how truly horrifying The Grabber was established to be, and how ambiguous his life was to a point. And while the film ramps up the supernatural aspects, the stakes don’t rise to the film’s potential, coming across as Freddy Krueger with an identity crisis. Hawke barely is given enough screen time within this sequel to match his performance in his first outing, often feeling like he wasn’t even on set to film.

While McGraw is the film’s shining star with her spunky comebacks and take-charge attitude, the film’s script leaves more than you’d want to be desired. Written by Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill, the dialogue tends to come off as cringey attempts to establish the film’s time period more than anything, with Gwen offering an overdose of ’80s slang that doesn’t fit the film’s uneasy tone. Outside of the nightmares, the writing is at its worst—especially with new additions to the franchise’s roster, with camp workers and diehard religious couple Barbara (Maev Beaty) and Kenneth (Graham Abbey), and Gwen’s love interest Ernesto Arellano (Miguel Mora), who had a brother also killed by The Grabber. Their inclusion in the film adds more comedic moments that don’t fit within a film about children being brutalized.

Derrickson’s utilization of Super 8 footage mixed with blizzard conditions is what pulls this film across the finish line. While Gwen, Finney, and Ernesto embark on their drive to this camp in the chilly mountains of Colorado, there’s stunning camerawork while the trio is inside the car, showing emergency workers saving lives during an unprecedented snowfall, while also showing the teenagers pushing through and driving toward danger. When the nightmares begin in Gwen’s cabin, she’s completely isolated—being the only person staying in the female bunks—and while the Super 8 footage kicks in, it creates an atmosphere that allows dangers to hide in the shadows and an overwhelming helplessness.

While there are plenty of aspects of Black Phone 2 that fall short of being as impactful as the first, the snowy nightmares—led by McGraw’s strong performance—allow the film to hold your attention long enough to skate to the film’s credits.

Grade: C

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Writer: Will Tracy
Stars: Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Aidan Delbis

Synopsis: Two conspiracy-obsessed young men kidnap the high-powered CEO of a major company, convinced that she is an alien intent on destroying planet Earth.

It brings this Greek film critic a particular joy to see just how far Yorgos Lanthimos’ career has come. Both his skillset and singular voice have always been clear, but it’s tough to imagine anybody seeing 2009’s Dogtooth (his arguable breakout film) being able to predict his rise to becoming an Oscar darling. Perhaps most exciting about this transitional journey packed with excellent films is that he’s never lost the elements of the cinematic Greek Weird Wave. In fact, Lanthimos’ ability to alienate his audiences while simultaneously crafting undeniable entertainment vehicles for the masses is deeply impressive.

Any cinephile should be thrilled that such a distinct filmmaking voice is so present in modern cinema. That he and the incredible Emma Stone are honing this voice together is more than just the cherry on top of an exciting cinematic sundae. It instead feels akin to a complimentary dessert dish in its own right. Since her Oscar-nominated role in Lanthimos’ The Favourite, she has starred in every film of his moving forward. She even starred in his silent short film, Bleat, made in Greece, which has screened less than a handful of times worldwide due to its stringent presentation requirements. This creative partnership clearly enriches both Lanthimos and Stone, allowing each party to take bolder swings and innately convey the absurdity present in any particular filmic scenario. Bugonia, Lanthimos’ latest film and third this decade, reaffirms this notion of playfulness among them and their understanding of what the other brings to the big screen. And while it may not reach the heights of any of their previous collaborations, Bugonia presents a fascinating worldview grappling with several ideas.

Despite still remaining widely accessible, Lanthimos’ films post-The Favourite have been brushing up against the audiences he has amassed. His feature films have often reckoned with the state of the world in some way. But the subtext feels as if it’s becoming more and more textual with each new entry into the Lanthimos oeuvre. Importantly, each film takes an interest in how an individual, or select group of individuals, handle their current place within their respective society. For Bella Baxter in Poor Things, she takes on the harsh realities and injustices of the world with a hope that things can become better. It may be partially fueled by naïveté considering her origins, but it’s a noble (and excellent) film exploring such endeavors.

Kinds of Kindness is a particularly alienating triptych of stories depicting people that are breaking down as the systems they rely on begin to fail. It’s a film which actively feels like Lanthimos wants to toy with his Oscar audiences. And despite not being written by Lanthimos, Bugonia feels like quite the extension of this overarching idea of failing systems found in his previous film. Furthermore, Bugonia feels distinctly interested in alienating its audience considering that’s the entire conceit of the film to begin with. Bugonia is ultimately a film which is reckoning with the devastating, and ultimately tragic, ways we have alienated ourselves from one another.

Bugonia follows the 3-day aftermath of CEO Michelle Fuller’s (Stone) kidnapping at the hands of Teddy (Jesse Plemons) and Don (Aidan Delbis). The ticking clock structure which breaks this film into chapters exists due to Teddy’s vehement belief that Fuller is an alien. He believes the only time to contact her off-world leaders is during an upcoming eclipse. If that seems a bit silly on paper, that’s because it is; but Lanthimos has always been able to balance disparate tones across his filmography. Of course Teddy’s conspiracy-riddled theories and overall scheme is ridiculous. But the comedic edges of Bugonia never dull its most shocking moments. Though that’s not to say every emotional beat of this film works without a hitch. Despite Will Tracy’s script intentionally keeping the audience, and Fuller, at arm’s length, the emotional resonance of Bugonia feels a bit sparse as its many ideas bounce around a packed runtime which also feels a bit too long. It’s a strange disconnect between narrative and pacing, but it still manages to make way for a propulsive and absurd third act. But Bugonia has much to work through before getting to its bound-to-be spoken about finale.

The intent of this film, like many of Lanthimos’ works, is to discomfort his audience as he addresses realistic issues through absurdist means. And in these uncomfortable realities comes a series of emotions which are fully understandable. In the case of Bugonia, it’s that of several tragedies. While exploring corporate greed and the ways in which the upper class belittle and look through through the working class, Bugonia allows Lanthimos to depict the evils of society warping those at its center. Teddy is an antagonistic force of this film in some ways. But due to Plemons’ incredible performance, he comes across as a man who has simply broken. The film certainly doesn’t forgive him at any point. Nor does it excuse his actions.

But it’s interesting the ways in which Lanthimos and Tracy attempt to convey some sympathy for Tracy. One could argue he’s a sort of tragic figure, if only in the sense that cases like his seem avoidable if massive companies, such as the veiled pharmaceutical one at the center of this film, actually cared about the people they purport to serve. While it may not always work for the film, Bugonia is full-blown tragedy in the classical Greek sort of way. There’s a dark humor present in Teddy’s hair-brained conspiracy, but that never belittles the harrowing, deeply sad reality of the situation. If this film is to serve as a mirror for its audience, the reflection reveals a damned image for its audience and humanity at large.

To think of how deep a hole Teddy has fallen into is frightening. And it’s within those depths that Teddy’s actions and behavior, however tragic, are never justified. One just needs to see how Lanthimos’ direction and Tracy’s script focus on Teddy’s manipulation of his sweet cousin, Don. Through such unnecessary collateral damage, Bugonia sees the filmmakers painfully questioning how we could let something like this ever happen in the first place. Perhaps it’s not something somebody just stumbles into. It’s only through a series of emotionally heightened circumstances and a refusal to engage with them in meaningful, therapeutic ways that people such as Teddy can find themselves in such a dangerous echo chamber. But the culpability doesn’t solely rest with any one person.

Bugonia makes it clear as day that the upper class and corporate greed have caused irreparable damage to a wide majority of the population. Having been allowed to run rampant for so long, the consequences of such actions now have roots running deep in the very fabric of modern society. It’s through these roots that Bugonia finds its strongest angle into the avoidable tragedy of this story. This is more than just a kidnapping being presented by Lanthimos. It’s a damning indictment on humanity at large.

Given, Bugonia may not feel like the most fully thought-out indictment of upsetting societal truths like conspiracy-fueled lunatics or corporate greed due to occasionally flat characterization and a somewhat stalled pace. But a bonkers narrative development (which remains admirable despite its own thematic flaws) and excellent performances allows Bugonia the space to feel like another example of why Lanthimos is one of our most exciting contemporary filmmakers.

Grade: C+

Director: Chris Stuckmann
Writer: Chris Stuckmann
Stars: Camille Sullivan, Michael Beach, Sarah Durn

Synopsis: A woman’s obsessive search for her missing sister leads her into a terrifying mystery at the hands of an unknown evil.

The landscape of the YouTuber or content creator to filmmaking pipeline has been a fascinating one to witness over the past few decades. From shameless quick cash-ins like the Fred movies to more successful ventures in quality, like the recent surge of the Philippou brothers with Talk to Me and Bring Her Back. What I find most interesting about it, however, is the variation of creators; people like Philippou just got their start making silly short-form skits on their channel, which acts as a completely different voice of experience compared to Chris Stuckmann and his very first feature film, Shelby Oaks; which went from a Kickstarter lead project to a now Mike Flanagan-produced movie being distributed by Neon.

Stuckmann has always adored film, and before his channel also got its start making home movies of his own, the influence of his love for film and love for all things horror specifically oozes all over Shelby Oaks. From its creative blend of documentary and found footage filmmaking to the great use of creating tension through dark spaces and restraint from typical jump scares, it’s clear that Stuckmann has an eye for direction and knows how to craft a compelling image even with limited resources. However, the clear inspirations Stuckmann has as a fan of the horror genre also hamper its effectiveness as the film goes on. What starts relatively fresh slowly forms into a culmination of horror conventions and messiness that leads to a final feeling of dissatisfaction within its final reveals. It leads to Shelby Oaks being a fine but frustrating debut feature; one that has more than enough promise to prevent it from being a totally empty experience, but also a film that struggles under the weight of all it’s clearly influenced by. 

Shelby Oaks starts within a documentary-like format, following the story of Mia (Camille Sullivan) and her search for her now long-lost sister Riley (Sarah Dunn). Before her disappearance, Riley made a channel of her own with three of her friends entitled “The Paranormal Paranoids,” and they were famed for their exploration of the paranormal and whether their encounters with the supernatural were real or not. Things took a turn for the worse when, after exploring the abandoned town of the titular Shelby Oaks in 2008, all three of Riley’s friends were brutally murdered, and Riley herself is seen in video footage going into a room and seemingly disappearing out of thin air. With her faith in law enforcement low and her husband, Robert (Brendan Sexton III), doubtful of her ideas, Mia puts it on herself to find her missing sister and learn of the evil secrets that have been circulating around them both since her youth. 

The clearest appeal of Shelby Oaks from the get-go is its loving mesh of found footage and documentary-style horror filmmaking, and it’s a creative way for Stuckmann to make use of limited resources, while also adding to the film’s terror. The Blair Witch Project inspirations lurk all over the camera work, with a constant sense of always feeling like something is there that you aren’t seeing, or a relentless ambiance of scrappy camera movements and cracked windows that matches well with the film’s entire tone. It isn’t just the presentation that keeps Shelby Oaks initially creative at first, but Stuckmann’s direction behind the camera always keeps things from being completely boring within more familiar territory. He particularly has an understanding of when to use restraint during a scare, but also how to use the quiet stillness of the dark to a horror film’s advantage when it comes to the placement of the camera while setting up tension.

Where Shelby Oaks starts to unravel is when it consistently falls into becoming a mesh of overused horror film beats from its inspirations, rather than the more inspired and unique sensibilities it initially possessed. A lot of the reveals near the movie’s climax are often more satisfying not only because of its similarities to other recent genre fare, but also because of its loss of any creative builds of tension that it initially started with. Even for the fair amount of scenes that are genuinely well done throughout the film, others are more silly than scary when the film decides to play with the more demonic forces in the narrative. 

This messiness continues to reside within the screenplay as well, with over-explanations of certain supernatural plot points. Even the main characters themselves are a bit underwritten here. While there’s obviously a fair amount to be learned about them from the documentary portion of the film, there was never a moment when I could feel like I knew them, and rather, the movie was just telling me what I should know about them. This issue mainly resides in the character of Mia, specifically here, where, despite Sullivan’s solid performance, she is only ever defined by her looking for her sister. 

Shelby Oaks has so much passion at its core, and you can see its director bursting at the seams with his love for horror and found footage, but the film struggles to carry the weight of its ambitions under genre conventions that can leave it more stale than fresh. However, even if it is an imperfect debut at its center, it shows promise of more inventive fare yet to come from Stuckman rather than middling genre fare.

Grade: C+