A Desert, Cold Wallet, Ladybug, The Last Podcast, The Substance
And with that, another Pigeon Shrine FrightFest comes to an end. After four days of horror flicks, we reach bank holiday Monday. Still, the festival promises to go out on a bang with the most anticipated film of the year, The Substance, looking set to delight and disgust. Before that though, I have another few films to watch. Starting with…
THE LAST PODCAST
Directed by Dean Alioto
Charlie Bailey hosts the show ParaNormalcy, a skeptic channel that produces the sorts of debunking videos that were popular about a decade ago. His formula is much the same: he brings on believers for a conversation and then makes fun of them. His girlfriend Brie isn’t impressed, but he’s starting to build a loyal audience – if only he could get something that goes really viral. Then he meets Duncan, a junior professor at Pasadena-Tech University, who claims he can scientifically prove there’s no afterlife. The experiment is… Unconventional and unlikely to pass ethics. But in short, it results in Duncan’s death. Unfortunately for both, it turns out they were wrong and there is an afterlife, and now Charlie finds himself haunted by Duncan – unable to speak. However, this also gives him a whole new angle! Cue a dark comedy that looks at greed and corruption in the name of getting hits. It’s a welcome, if slightly unrewarding, return to horror from the make of The McPherson Tape. In its most successful moments, The Last Podcast watches like the twisted buddy dynamic of American Werewolf in London. It’s fun to watch Charlie and Duncan team up, and the way the script introduces new obstacles and stakes leads to a smooth escalation. Alioto perfectly sells a heightened reality where people can kill others without losing too much sleep over it, treating it as an exaggerated version of the sorts of compromises people need to make in a team. Eric Tabach is brilliant as Charlie, playing him as a smug d-bag whilst also being undeniably charismatic enough to get away with it. He tests our loyalties since the audience will want to see his show fail but should also enjoy being invested in his quest to grow it. Yet while the performance is first-rate, I wanted more from him as a character, like an intriguing backing story that’s hinted at then ignored. Likewise, where Death of a Vlogger features a similar descent, it also shows us the consequences Graham’s social media use on his mental health – we don’t get that from Charlie. And as much as the movie pays lip service to addiction, it doesn’t make us feel for him or anyone else – something that could have been helped by giving Brie more to do. Gabriel Rush is also accomplished, finding a variety of eyebrow raises and glances to express himself. Yet it’s not as good as the sum of its parts, which I’d put down to the lack of laughs. It has fun with the premise but doesn’t deliver enough humour or silliness to work fully. The last act is also rushed, introducing new ideas without exploring them meaningfully. Still, a good, spirited indy film that’s well worth seeking out.
Rating: 
LADYBUG
Directed by Tim Cruz
Grayson is an artist trying to clear his head with a trip to the family cabin: an old fixer-upper with no running water. At first, the script is uncharacteristically awkward, setting the scene with some stilted exposition about his career, family and ex (who he clearly isn’t over). However, once he realises he can’t fix a toilet, it settles into something breezier and more naturalistic. Enter Sawyer: a handsome, gay handyman who knows his oil works and maybe the man of his dreams. Grayson in instantly smitten, remarking that it’s almost like porn. Though on the horizon lurks a threat: a man lurking outside at night, an older woman who seems to be Sawyer’s mum hinting at a dark past, and Grayson starts waking up with sketches he doesn’t remember doing. It’s not immediately obvious what sort of horror film Ladybug is going to be – though the shift is well done even if it is frustratingly late. It’s commendable that Ladybug takes its time to develop its central relationship (if not the small town we hear of but hardly see). But for a film with such a slim cast, it also spends an unusually long building to a development most of the audience will see coming – which also gives it more than a passing resemblance to another recent, and better, film (I am obviously not making any claims about it copying it since I have no idea what the timeline was). This also means that the bulk of the movie, including its most interesting predicament, is forced into a final act that introduces too much too late. Motivations are also warped for the plot to function, undoing some of the commendable work from earlier, and I wasn’t impressed by a significant beat hinging on Grayson not exploring the cabin properly. Still, it also asks some interesting questions about art: are individual pieces an expression of the artist, or an idea waiting to be found? The way it can span generations makes artwork, be it paintings or movies, a chance to touch immortality and confront things we need to change about ourselves or society. I also applaud it for a chilling finale that encapsulates this idea.
Rating:
COLD WALLET
Directed by Cutter Hodierne
I had almost no expectations for this one: a tech thriller about a failed cryptocurrency presented by Steven Soderbergh. This one is called Tulip, and after a rapid rise, it goes into freefall following the death of its CEO, Charles Hegel. People are losing everything, including Billy – a deadbeat dad with anger issues who saw it as the easy way to get a house. However, he’s contacted by a fellow Reddit user, Eva, who says she has information Hegel isn’t really dead but is hiding in his mansion and about to board a one-way private jet elsewhere (why he faked his death before leaving is not addressed). Joined by Dom, a hippy wrestling coach, they visit Hegel. The plan is simple: get in, get a hold of his accounts, and send his money back to all the investors, i.e., rob from the rich and give to the poor. It’s a timely story about a world that could do with a skewering. At points, the satire is broad, though a sequence where they purchase weapons from the cheeriest gun seller may veers too much into stupidity. But I commend this for putting a human face to crypto scams. It isn’t just rich kids who lose money from these, and the righteousness of their cause makes it hard not to root for the gang. It helps that Billy is an interesting protagonist – frustrating in all the right ways. He wrestles with his hot-headedness and temptation to screw over others but is also redeemed by his evident love for his daughter. The sequences where he cosplays as wealthy balance his hypocrisy and the tragedy well. Whether he’ll end up like Captain Ahab, unable to overcome his obsession, or Robin Hood is the film’s main tension – underlined by some very on-the-nose symbolism towards the end. The devil on his shoulder is Charles himself, with Josh Brener giving the stand-out performance as a bratty tech-boy who isn’t rich enough to buy anyone’s love. I didn’t like how easily they could reach him – his security system is a single housekeeper who isn’t on site the whole time, and an Alexa, which undermines our understanding of him as a billionaire. Yet I was glad they got to him fast, as the scenes where he tries to turn the trio against each other are a delight. It builds up to a third act that achieves nail-biting suspense despite visible budgetary constraints and rounds off the themes nicely. It’s occasionally a bumpy ride to get there, with some of the dialogue sounding unnatural and a couple of clumsy plot mechanics. I usually wouldn’t comment on this, but the continuity is also comically bad; the sky changes colour regularly, and people’s phone/computer clocks go back and forth through time. Yet it’s an enjoyable and contemporary thriller worth investing your time in.
Rating:
THE SUBSTANCE
Directed by Coralie Fargeat
What a way to go out. The Substance is the second feature from Coralie Fargeat, who previously gave us the blood-soaked feminist superhero origin story Revenge. Now she’s back with the year’s most outrageous, darkly funny, body horror. The Substance follows Elizabeth Sparkle: a fading starlet who previously enjoyed a successful career as a fitness coach. After a minor road accident, she is taken to hospital, where a paramedic tips her off on a new black market drug (presumably in its experimental stages since money isn’t discussed). It can replicate her cells to temporarily create a younger, “better” version of herself. After a painful birth, out of her own back, Sue is formed – her from approximately 30 years ago. Between them, they do one week on and one week off, with the main instruction being to make sure they switch every week. But a bit like how Gremlins shouldn’t be fed after midnight, movie rules are there to be broken. What follows is a brilliant combo of compelling social satire and the most gruesome body horror in years – the last half hour is well worth the two hours to get there, and even the most seasoned horror fans will see things they won’t soon forget. It’s a good stab at a fucked up fable, even if the premise breaks down with even slight scrutiny. Sue isn’t a younger, fresher Elizabeth, but a whole other consciousness who carries across all her memories (and insecurities) until her conception. The question, therefore, becomes what the hell Elizabeth gets out of any of this! She isn’t experiencing the exciting things happening to Sue but is suffering the consequences. It helps that the world it takes place in is so fantastical and the satire so pointed that, like Barbie, you don’t question the plot mechanics because it’s ultimately an allegory. The scenes where the two of them sabotage each other are brilliant, and I enjoyed both Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley as different versions of the same person and seeing how the supporting characters respond to both. Dennis Quaid is brilliantly slimy as the TV exec Harvey. A major accomplishment of this movie is how it manages to ironically replicate the male gaze in a way that both shows the desirability of physical perfection and underlines how harmful it can be to those who do not meet it. And while it may seem like it is associating disgust with deviations, it’s also a perspective piece and exaggerated worst-case scenario that’s our world dialled up to eleven. Much like the four days that led to the screening, time flies. The fast-cut editing also puts us in Elizabeth’s headspace as she becomes a living painting of Dorien Grey. With moments of tragedy, brevity, and sheer disgust, it’s storytelling at its most impactful. Well done FrightFest – this is going out in style.
Rating:
I also saw…
A Desert: an accomplished, hypnotic neo-noir with amazing performances – particularly from Zachary Ray Sherman – that’ll take you deep into the middle of nowhere. An intriguing, mysterious, and haunting piece about locations and capturing a moment. It would be best if you went in knowing as little as possible and get purposefully lost in it.
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