Moonfall (2022)

When I read Michael Crichton’s 2002 killer-nanotech novel, Prey, I thought it would make a great movie. Now that I’ve seen Roland Emmerich’s Moonfall, featuring a similar villainous swarm, I second-guess my decision.

Ten years ago, while arguing over Toto lyrics, Space Shuttle astronaut Brian Harper (The Conjuring patriarch Patrick Wilson, born to look the part) lost a fellow crew member to an attacking cloud of sentient particles that put the “AI” in “hentai.” Now a disgraced former space cowboy and current deadbeat dad, Harper gets a shot at redemption when British and bearded conspiracy theorist KC Houseman (John Bradley, 2018’s Patient Zero) notices something NASA has not: The nanotech has forced the moon’s orbit outta whack!

Corralling Harper’s former partner (a wasted Halle Berry, Catwoman), they embark on a world-saving mission: Nuke the nanotech. All they need is a Space Shuttle; good thing a decommissioned one sits in an abandoned museum, if you don’t mind “FUCK THE MOON” graffitied on the fuselage. They don’t.

As stupid as all of this is, Moonfall is fairly watchable in its first hour, wringing a money shot out of the orbital shift triggering an L.A. flood. The second hour — the one in space — is where the movie becomes one big Moonfail. Emmerich sends our heroic trio into the moon’s craters, where what they find makes Mission to Mars’ much-derided “PowerPoint” climax look distinguished by comparison. Emmerich stretches his reveal into full-blown prequel potential with unneeded mythology that unspools like Stargate fanfic.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, family members in Colorado flee inbred rednecks in a chase sequence so overblown, it’s remarkable F9 hadn’t already laid claim.

Hoping to relive his box-office glory days of Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow, Emmerich recycles every page from his playbook: fractured family drama, meteorological porn, a melting-pot cast, regular-dude heroics, unspeakable dialogue (“I’m an astronaut, not a soldier!”) and, of course, upturned U.S. monuments. It’s all too much and yet not enough. —Rod Lott

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TV Gothic: The Golden Age of Small Screen Horror

Two things about the title of TV Gothic: The Golden Age of Small Screen Horror could limit the trade paperback’s potentially fervent audience. First, “TV Gothic” suggests it only covers Gothic horror, whereas author Howard Maxford covers horror in general.

Second, “The Golden Age” suggests it covers only a finite range of years — possibly the 1970s, based on the Salem’s Lot image adorning the front — but in truth, Maxford truly scours tube history for seemingly every relevant show to hit the airwaves shortly after the medium’s inception. A boo show here and a boo show there, everywhere a boo show — many more exist than you think, and while some may merit a mere sentence or two, inclusion is the name of Maxford’s game. If the subject interests you, roll the dice!

Now, if you’re hoping for an episode guide of the genre’s most prominent series, don’t, because TV Gothic is not that book. (However, that book already exists, as John Kenneth Muir’s Terror Television, highly recommended and also from McFarland & Company.) It’s also not an encyclopedia as Maxford’s 2018 book, Hammer Complete: The Films, the Personnel, the Company (yep, McFarland again), was.

So what is this one? Reading TV Gothic is akin to sitting Maxford in the comfiest chair possible and asking him to tell you the complete story of the previous millennium’s cathode-ray chillers. The result: a fact dump that might annoy if it weren’t so damned thoroughly, meticulously researched. He includes everything you expect: Dark Shadows, those wonderful ’70s made-for-TV movies, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, all the anthologies, The X-Files, the UK Christmas ghost stories and the kiddie cartoons. Each short-lived show I recall from my youth — Cliffhangers, Darkroom, et al. — is covered.

Along the way are more shows since forgotten, if you noticed them at all — Shirley Temple’s Storybook, anyone? TV Gothic is such a wealth of information, it should be unbelievable … yet here it is. My largest point of dissent is that Maxford stops at 2000, other than including a list in the appendix. Certainly I’m not the only one wanting to reminisce about Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace and Harper’s Island? —Rod Lott

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Two Witches (2021)

Pierre Tsigaridis makes a knockout directorial entrance with the two-fisted Two Witches, a wickedly delightful pair of interlocked tales involving the devil herself — yes, her — and the titular women who do her bidding. To paraphrase the kid at the Gas ‘n’ Sip on a Saturday night in Say Anything …, “Witches, man!”

Not since Rosemary’s Baby has a young, pregnant woman gone through as much trimester trauma as Sarah (Belle Adams, The Manor), the center of chapter one. After an unkempt “boogeywoman” (Marina Parodi) gives her “the evil eye” in a restaurant, Sarah grows more anxious and nauseated, not to mention plagued by nightmarish visions. It’s all made worse by a visit to friends who dig out the Ouija board.

The second chapter illustrates why having roommates is a living hell. For grad student Rachel (Kristina Klebe, 2007’s Halloween reboot), her difficulties amount to the waifish Masha (Rebekah Kennedy, 2011’s Season of the Witch) being needy, manipulative and, well, a witch.

One of Two Witches’ strengths is Tsigaridis’ script isn’t concerned about explaining the witchery, which makes it all the more chilling. Another is how far mere facial expressions can go in creating fright in viewers; he relies on that as much as the ol’ standby of contact lenses that make its wearers look as though their eyeballs have been swapped with freshly peeled hard-boiled eggs. (I only wish he had more trust in his audience; we don’t need flashbacks to understand characters appearing in the second story are the same key supporting players we just saw a few minutes before in the first.)

Highly influenced by Eurohorror, the witches are terrifying, fitting alongside the coven from Dario Argento’s Suspiria. Going further, in emphasizing scares over style, this is the witch movie you likely hoped Luca Guadagnino’s 2018 remake would be. I can see it becoming a perennial favorite from Halloween to Christmas, given the second half takes place at that supposed most wonderful time of the year.

From subliminal flashes to unflinching scenes of violence and the vile, Two Witches works hard and pays off, begging to be seen in a crowded theater. Bow to the new queen. And stick around after the credits. —Rod Lott

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Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands (1976)

When I met Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands, it was in the mature section of the video store. Surrounded by beaded curtains, the titillation of promised soft porn — “cable version,” the box exclaimed — just around the fuzzy corner to syrupy heaven and carnal self-pleasure.

Instead, it was a Brazilian art film about the dual nature a woman goes though channeling love and lust. I was thoroughly pissed. But now, some 25 years after I first saw it, I have viewed Dona Flor with new eyes.

After a night of hard partying, Vadinho (José Wilker) dies. His widow, the titular Flor (Sônia Braga), brings new meaning to long-suffering; during their marriage, he went from cockfighting and gambling to countless affairs and wife-beating, as one does.

Flor goes on with her life. She meets and marries Teodoro (Mauro Mendonça), a pharmacist she believes is a good man, but also a boring one. It’s okay, though; Vadinho’s ghostly visage is fine with performing all his late-husbandly duties — all sexual, of course. I guess Teodoro does, too.

While I originally thought this was tale about a new wife and the trials and titrations about marriage, it’s actually a sexy wish-fulfillment fantasy, with Braga’s Flor being the sultry object of South American desire. It’s concerning that she puts up with Vadinho’s abuse, but I guess she makes peace with it, because Flor gives both men a kiss goodnight, even if one’s a ghost.

Dona Flor was first remade in 1983 as Kiss Me Goodbye with Sally Field, James Caan and Jeff Bridges. The original’s sex appeal was monstrously gone, replaced with a brown swatch of neutered khaki fabric. —Louis Fowler

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Miracle Valley (2021)

As Infrared recently showed, with the right role, The Room sidekick Greg Sestero can act. While Miracle Valley isn’t his greatest showcase, he proves he can direct, too — on his first outing, no less.

With girlfriend Sarah (model Angela Mariano, doing just fine in her acting debut) down in the dumps due to a gravely ill mom, David (Sestero) takes her on a weekend road trip to an out-of-the-way ranch in the unforgiving Arizona desert. Besides, he’s trying to snap a pic of the elusive, never-before-photographed “silver hawk.”

Birds should be his least concern, given the area’s bats: the members of a cult settled in the area. When a menacing motorcyclist (scene-stealing live wire Rick Edwards, Skatetown U.S.A.) invites them to an event — Father Rick’s Awakening — a spiritually thirsty Sarah talks David into going.

Upon their departure, David’s pal jokes, “Don’t drink the Kool-Aid!” As we’ve established before, the noxious beverage he’s referencing was Flavor Aid. Still, the sugar-powder shoe fits; with Miracle Valley being about a cult, the friend’s barb soon no longer lands as funny.

So you think you know where Miracle Valley is going. And you’re right … but also not. Sestero’s script follows the well-tread path of all krazy-kook movies before it, until he chooses where to head next seemingly by throwing a stack of old Marvel Comics in the air — The Incredible Hulk and The Tomb of Dracula in particular — and letting the fallen pages guide him.

That’s largely a compliment. While he doesn’t always make the right choice, he at least makes a different choice. In doing so, Miracle Valley upends your expectations while fulfilling your hunger for exploitation, and leaves a good-looking corpse. With the epilogue at Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic Fallingwater home, how could it not? —Rod Lott

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