Carla has visions. Of a science-class skeleton rolling around in a wheelchair. Of a monk violently ax-whacking the head of a Buddha statue. Doctors have “a perfectly reasonable explanation: You’re a medium!”
It’s true! Played by Stefania Orsola Garello (2004’s King Arthur), Carla’s one of a few University of Rome geology students heading home after a lengthy stint of field work. One of them looks like God placed his ears on upside down. Landslides and bad weather conspire to close the highway, forcing them to hunker down in an out-of-season hotel — The House of Lost Souls, one might say.
Also staying at the hotel? Chainsaws, bear traps, tarantulas. And activities? Decapitation is definitely on the table. (And in the laundry dryer.) Amenities? Well, a kid says, “Wow, what a meal, kid,” and that’s the best part.
Director Umberto Lenzi (Ghosthouse) builds The House of Lost Souls atop a foundation of the expected gore, but it lacks pizazz. The film was made for Italian TV as one unit of a four-part series, another being Lenzi’s The House of Witchcraft. However, for my tastes, the most fun to be had reside within the other two, The House of Clocks and The Sweet House of Horrors, both constructed by Lucio Fulci, who knew more about being a bad, bad neighbor. —Rod Lott
After the one-two punch of Back to the Future and Teen Wolf, with all their time-traveling and van-surfing going on, Michael J. Fox went for the box-office hat trick with a film that, sadly, had none of those fantasy leanings: the rock ’n’ roll drama Light of Day. He failed.
That said, I never considered Light of Day a Michael J. Fox movie. Instead, I viewed it as a Joan Jett film detailing her fictional rocky road to ill-fated stardom. With her gloriously raspy voice belting out the mid-’80s hard-rocking tunes within the context of a late-phase cancer drama, it’s an uphill battle for the entertaining devil-signing hordes of the decade’s lost children. By God, it works for me, but for others? Woof.
In Light of Day, Jett’s a single mom collecting cans around town while her brother Fox “works on the line,” whatever that is. As the sun goes down, they’re in a band called the Barbusters, the kind of band only movie people can make. Fox is on guitar and works a steady job, while Jett is the type of musician who believes “music is all that matters.” Together, they go on the hardest road imaginable. It’s a bad scene, cumulating with her using kid in a shoplifting scheme that tears them all apart. Sad!
After a label-mandated Fabulous Thunderbirds show — they are tuffenough! — their overbearing mother (Gena Rowlands) is diagnosed with late-stage ovarian cancer. As depressing as that is, Jett and Fox play the terrific Bruce Springsteen-penned title tune at the close, so everything is all right in the end.
Directed by Paul Schrader — the guy behind Hardcore, Cat People and, um, Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist — is a fine director, sure, but he is way out of his element here. Like a Michael Bolton biopic, it seems like he wants to create a rock movie with plenty of drama … with little to no rock involved.
In her film debut, Jett is not the best dramatic actress. But she’s better than most erstwhile rockers in their debut, creating real gravitas and a rocking performance. Who could do it: Alice Cooper? Ozzy Osbourne? Jon Mikl-Thor?!?
On the other hand, the supporting cast of Fox, Rowlands and Jason Miller are good actors, but likely terrible musicians. (Supporting player Michael McKean is passable in that Spinal Tap way, so he gets a pass.)
Light of Day could have been a real rock drama with a good screen story, impassioned performances and the best soundtrack around. Instead … well, the music is pretty good. As a staid Fox vehicle, it’s pretty flawed and very rundown. But if hard-rocking, screaming-metal sirens of filth and fury are your spiked bag, it’s the best Joan Jett movie around! —Louis Fowler
For 63 years, a mountain known as the Forbidden Wall’s been off-limits to climbers — not that anyone in recorded history reached its peak. Oh, they’ve tried, but never completed the treacherous task. Somewhere along the way, they fell victim to an evil aural presence that drove them insane enough to unhook their gear and take the Nestea plunge.
Now, the tribal council in charge of the sacred chunk of rock has voted to allow half a dozen of the world’s greatest climbers to give it a go. This time, it’s personal — at least for chill dude-bro Sean (Marc Hills, Blood, Beach, Betrayal): His gramps was the last to attempt the climb. You’ll repeatedly hear this story — and more! — in the exposition dump that constitutes the first 25 minutes of The Sound.
The expedition’s boss is our antagonist. We know this because his name is Colton. Played by Nicholas Baroudi (The Hating Game), Colton arrives like he’s Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross, spouting such tuff-boss speech as, “I’m the boss, end of story. Don’t like it, there’s the door, I got 30 other people ready to take your spot.” (I’m paraphrasing, barely.)
We also meet the tribal chief (Wayne Charles Baker, Pathfinder), whose character is so stock, it could make soup. (Sample condescending dialogue: “The ravens told me you were out for a walk.”) The chief gives Sean a bonus task: “Seal that evil in forever.” Replies Sean, “What am I supposed to do? I’m just a rock climber.” Well, dumbo, for starters, you’re the one going up there.
As Jerzy Skolimowski did with 1978’s The Shout, sophomore writer/director Brendan Devane (The Canyonlands) faces a peculiar creative dilemma: When your story hinges on a sound that kills, how do you represent that for your audience? Or do you at all, leaving it to their imagination?
Not crafting a picture of nuances, of course Devane gives sound to, well, the sound. It’s a hodgepodge of voices and feedback and assorted auditory racket — nothing special or all that menacing. But sound design is the least of the film’s troubles. I mean, what do you think will become of the guy named Lucky? (Should you be waffling, would it help if I mentioned he’s not white?)
Although giving speaking parts to real-life pro climbers (like Alex Honnold of the Oscar-winning doc Free Solo) is a nice, respectful gesture on Devane’s part, these remarkable athletes aren’t remotely skilled as actors. His decision to center the movie around Hills is almost as baffling; as Sean, the guy has presence — but one best described as “sleepy.”
Then again, Hills is asked to breathe life into dialogue that wouldn’t take spark with strike-anywhere matches. Take, for example, Sean’s mid-cliff convo with fellow climber Kristin (Rachel Finninger, Monstrous) after the acoustic from Abaddon again rears its fury:
Shaun: “I felt it in my head. Which means it can be in anyone’s head. It can be in your head.” Kristin: “Are you, you know, you?” Shaun: “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Of all the script’s figurative missteps, the biggest and most brainless is what happens — or who pops up, really — in the finale. It’s so wrongheaded, I’m tempted to reveal it, yet mere words wouldn’t do the jaw-dropper justice.
And popping up elsewhere in cameos, thirtysomething’s David Clennon and Tenacious D’s Kyle Gass appear via FaceTime. On the bright side, The Sound features some great photography when it’s not obviously on a set. —Rod Lott
Since its release, Charlie Victor Romeois a film I’ve always wanted to see and never wanted to see. “Always” because it employs a unique creative concept in documenting reality; “never” because that reality is aviation disasters.
For the sake of my blood pressure and anxiety, I was wise to postpone viewing until I’d safely returned home from a transatlantic flight. Sully, this is not.
Charlie Victor Romeo presents six reenactments of then-recent airplane crashes, word for word from transcripts from the cockpit voice recorder, or CVR. (The film’s title translates that acronym via the industry’s phonetic alphabet — one that still annoys me today when I ask my dad, a retired navigator, to spell something.)
The movie is deceptively simple, as actors from the NYC-based Collective:Unconscious portray these black-box recordings in a black-box theater environment. Vignettes run as long as a teasingly stressful half-hour to an alarmingly abrupt one minute.
From severe turbulence and faulty parts to mechanic error and birds birds birds, the cause of each situation varies. At first, it’s reassuring to see the intricate, data-based methods the pilots follow. Then, when danger arrives, witnessing the differences in reactions is terrifying. (Certainly Nathan Fielder had to have seen this before embarking on HBO’s second season of The Rehearsal.)
No narrators, no talking heads and, other than a slide totaling the casualties, no explanations. Charlie Victor Romeo is both forensically sober and fucking intense. Prepare for takeoff all you want, but you’ll never be the same afterward. —Rod Lott
As the title card of Don’t Tell Larry informs us, every office has that one weirdo. (To which I say, “One?“) At the cruise company of this movie’s case, the resident oddball is the titular Larry. Played by the Ed Helms-ian Kiel Kennedy (It’s a Wonderful Binge), he’s a dimwitted, socially awkward new hire who eats raisins one by one, spearing each with a sharpened pencil.
So when the CEO (Ed Begley Jr., Strange Darling) suddenly plummets to his death under dubious circumstances, company MVP Susan (Patty Guggenheim, The Happytime Murders) suspects Larry. Recruiting her office bestie, Patrick (Kenneth Mosley, Searching), Susan schemes to plant evidence to get Larry fired — less because he could be a threat, more because she doesn’t want him to discover she purposely didn’t invite him to the CEO’s retirement party.
Speaking of co-workers, Greg Porper and John Schimke share writing and directing duties on Don’t Tell Larry, adapting their 16-minute 2018 short into a full feature. The high-gloss result may bear the rhythms of a well-timed comedic engine, but lacks the type of jokes to make it purr. The scenarios into which Porper and Schimke drop Susan and Patrick are the stock and trade of 1970s multicamera network sitcoms, with no circumstance more far-fetched than passing off a jar of urine as kombucha.
Only at intervals do punch lines land as intended. Most of them involve either Molly Franco’s dead-on savage portrayal of an egocentric influencer or Kennedy, whose supporting-player status takes him offscreen too often. —Rod Lott
