I Watched Some Recent Thrillers!

I know people like Karen Gillan. Gangly redhead, good politics, funny on the internet, down for action-comedy, Dr Who veteran, shaved her head for the MCU. But are people paying attention to her acting in non-action films? Has anyone else noticed the niche she’s created playing depressed people in even more depressing situations, her lively wide eyes providing a necessary irony? In the early Mike Flanagan film Oculus, her character’s sole reason for existing was exacting revenge on a cursed mirror. The Party’s Just Beginning, her confident, underseen debut as a triple threat, is about the ripple effects of a friend’s suicide. Maybe more will notice, now that Dual brings together this darker mode with the throwing-knives-mid-somersault one. Gillan plays Sarah, a woman sleepwalking through life until she’s informed of a looming terminal illness. In the film’s one sci-fi conceit, Sarah opts to be cloned so she doesn’t have to talk to her mom or leave her fiancee alone. Facing death doesn’t give her a new appreciation for life. She just wants to sneak out the back door. The disease takes longer than she hoped, and the clone quickly forms closer bonds with her circle than she herself enjoyed. When the illness inexplicably goes into remission,  Sarah’s double refuses to be decommissioned, opting for them to duel to the death, a clause Sarah failed to catch in the contract.

As the action turns more violent and surreal (Sarah hires a trainer played by Aaron Paul to prepare her for the showdown, leading to a non-financial payment sequence I’d hate to spoil), the cast still addresses everything with a flat, batty archness. It’s not unlike a Black Mirror episode directed by the Coens. Writer-director Riley Stearns (who debuted with Faults, a spry near-noir I loved about a downwardly mobile cult deprogrammer) isn’t quite as assured as the Coens when it comes to tone. I went a long time thinking Dual was about a woman on the spectrum, impressed they weren’t explicitly calling her condition out. Turns out Stearns was just indulging in a little affectation, some actors hitting the note harder than others. Nonetheless, it’s an entertaining, surprising film that leaves me excited to see what he and Gillan do next.

I didn’t realize it until checking IMDB, but as with Stearns, I’ve now seen Travis Stevens’ first and third movies (I’d never heard of Stevens’ second, Jakob’s Wife, and I didn’t see Stearns’ The Art Of Self-Defense because it starred Jesse Eisenberg). Stevens’ debut The Girl On The Third Floor, on Netflix, was a solid B ghost movie starring CM Punk, but I never would have guessed the same filmmaker made A Wounded Fawn, currently on Shudder. Both noticeably utilize the “practical effects” horror hounds delight in, but Fawn is considerably more overt about it, flaunting 16” film stock, animatronics, and other nerd-salivating tricks.

The film concerns a classy, art world serial killer who makes the mistake of stealing a classic statue of The Furies and letting it watch him stab another date. While the speed with which it moves towards his supernatural just desserts is a shock, and Josh Ruben is effectively intense as the soon-long-suffering murderer, the film doesn’t have further twists or even much of a dramatic arc. As remarkable as the visuals remain, they’re arguably too tactile and pointedly old school to feel genuinely hallucinatory in the modern day. Trading Sarah Lind’s sarcastic and smart but understandably scared female lead for a trio of Greek goddesses waving their arms all Greek goddess-like is a bit of a let-down, too. But then I enjoy cat-and-mouse plots as much as film twitter enjoys practical effects.

Sick, the latest film by John Hyams, is predictably big on cat-and-mouse. His last movie, Alone, was almost entirely a woman in the woods trying to get free of a serial killer. Black Summer, the show he co-created and directed half of, is long take of people avoiding zombies after long take of people avoiding zombies (I am so pissed I don’t hear more people praising it to the heavens, and that there’s no news yay or nay about a third season). Hyams is a master of predator-prey filmmaking, so I was delighted to learn he was directing a Kevin Williamson co-written script about two college students hunted by a killer while quarantining themselves in one of those multi-floor cabins with huge glass windows I’d be scared shitless to be miles from anywhere in.

Still doing my best to respect my health, the health of my loved ones and the fact that we’re still in a goddamn pandemic, I was torn between gratitude a movie was actually acknowledging the specifics of life under COVID, and annoyance that it was treating 2020 lockdown as a period we're ready to look back on. The annoyance only grew deeper after the identity of the killer was revealed. Their motivation is directly connected to the pandemic, but in a way that lacks any metaphorical punch or coherent logic (a victim even calls this out, only to be told to shut up and accept violent wackadoos are going to violent wackadoo). Sick is another movie about a murderer who hates horny teens, just one that keeps either shoving its news hook into your face or forgetting about it (while we’re treated to a newscaster talking about the risk taken by first responders, there’s no callback when we actually see first responders). Hyams gets to have his (pseudo?) steadicam fun, and the central cast is charming (particularly Pamela Adlon’s daughter, reportedly not a clone). But Williamson has been making heartless, trashy television for a lot longer than he was writing remarkably witty horror movies (anybody else seen an episode of Stalker? Or remember The Following?). You can’t really call this a comeback.

The Menu probably has the best look, the best cast, and the best concept of all these films, and yet I liked it the least. At his best, Ralph Fiennes has the commanding intensity of Daniel Day-Lewis without the impenetrability, taking in the world and visibly letting it affect him. Julian Slowik, a master chef whose uncompromising commitment to his craft hides deep reservoirs of resentment and pain, is a perfect role for him. Voldemort serving an increasingly ominous tasting menu to an ensemble including Nicholas Hoult’s desperate foodie, John Leguizamo’s smirking has-been, Janet McTeer’s self-possessed food critic and Anna-Taylor Joy’s unbelieving X factor? The film promises riches as diverse and sumptuous as, well, a tasting menu.  

Once everyone’s intent is revealed, the film sadly devolves into an overwrought slog towards an inevitable end. In its most promising moment, Joy explicitly calls out how dull and miserable the meal has become, Slowik’s dishes conceptually twisted but hollow, devoid of the joy of cooking. Fiennes’ chef is understandably delighted by the suprise, and does his damnedest to rise to the challenge. Heartbreakingly, minutes later, he’s forced to act like it never happened, somehow announcing he’s sure the same meal-in-progress will be his “masterpiece.” Despite the agony and anguish, condemning what capitalism has made of culinary culture, all the film ended up doing was make me nostalgic for tasting menus. Maybe someday I’ll want to eat inside a restaurant again.