The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast – Episode 392: Hereditary, Cults, and Get Rich Schemes
You can download or stream the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker (or wherever you listen to podcasts…..we’re almost everywhere).
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Mark and Lisa Leaheey (of the SibList Podcast) discuss the 2018 horror film Hereditary. Directed by Ari Aster, and starring Toni Collette, Alex Wolff, Gabriel Byrne, and Milly Shapiro, the movie focuses on what happens when a demon worshipping cult wants to make some extra money. In this episode, they talk about chocolate, insane scams, and the beautiful production design.
If you are a fan of the podcast, make sure to send in some random listener questions (we love random questions). We thank you for listening, and hope you enjoy the episode!
You can download the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker.
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NOT SAFE FOR WORK
NSFW
NOT SAFE FOR WORK
MY CALL: Really cool ideas and monster effects don’t save this pseudo-anthology from the depths of generally weak filmmaking and writing. As impressed as I was with the monsters, I simply found the film boring. Sorry. I really wanted to like this. MORE MOVIES LIKE Necromentia: Well, for more body modification horror and/or discount Cenobites, I’d recommend Strangeland (1998), Return of the Living Dead 3 (1993) and No Reason (2010).
A disoriented man (Hagen; Santiago Craig) awakens with a Ouija board scarred into his back and a strange gas-masked Cenobite giving him a hammed-up Jigsaw lecture about his choices and punishment. After the recent passing of his wife, Hagen had preserved her stiffening body in his makeshift, filthy basement mortuary where his daily “maintenance” of her condition flirts with necrophilia. His eventual fate at the hands of yet another undeniably Hellraiser-inspired Cenobite is gruesome, and his dark angel perpetrator looked positively wicked considering the budget of the film!
Travis (Chad Grimes), the man who scarred the Ouija board onto Hagen, had fallen on tough times after the loss of his parents. To care for his disabled younger brother Thomas (Zach Cumer), he runs a scarification business. But while he works, a pig-headed, barb wire fever dream of a demon convinces the boy to commit suicide. Using the dark gifts of necromancy, Travis conjures a demon into a dead man’s body to aid him. But the demon has demands.
The special effects were very good considering budgetary restrictions—although, the effects probably accounted for the lion’s share of money spent. Morbius (Layton Matthews) is poisoned, but takes the life of his murderer before succumbing to a massively gruesome, skull-cracking face-smashing. Scenes of body modification and on-screen torture are also graphic, but not unbearably brutal. We find bondage, sheers severing fingers, oral surgery devices, some disembowelment… it’s like Marylin Manson’s wet dream of the 90s.
The weakest component of this film is the dialogue. When demons speak, they speak the lines you’d expect a twelve-year-old to write; it’s the stuff of 80s comic books with horror flare. Unfortunately, it really diminished the gravity otherwise cultivated by the macabre visuals and tactfully dreary sets.
Advertised as Saw (2004) meets Hellraiser (1987), I feel somewhat conflicted. If I simply agree, then people will get excited to watch this with very high expectations. If I disagree, then I’d also be denying the obvious and frequent concepts inspired by those films and brandished proudly on-screen. Perhaps this is more like Saw (2004) meets Hellraiser (1987) in the hands of inferior filmmakers (sorry, not sorry) with some really cool ideas.
On a budget of only $300k, director and writer Pearry Reginald Teo (The Gene Generation, The Evil Inside) did a lot with this pseudo-anthology which links the dark fate of several people to a ritualistic necromantic wounding. For all the provocative imagery and gore, I just never really cared what happened. This was really rather boring for something so macabre. Great ideals, great vision, but much more in terms of execution is left to be desired. Sigh… oh well. I’m glad I gave it a try. This film tried its best.
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John’s Horror Corner: The Granny (1995), ugly crusty-faced demons and nice boobs populate this raunchy horror comedy.
MY CALL: This is middle-of-the-road schlocky fun. Boobs, blood, demon faces and weak death scenes. You could do worse. But you could do way better. MORE MOVIES LIKE The Granny: Well, for more murderously demonic geriatric horror, go for Rabid Grannies (1988). Another potion of eternal youth-gone-wrong B-movie delight would be The Rejuvenator (1988).
In the space of just a few minutes, director Luca Bercovici (Rockula, Dark Tide) sets the raunchy atmosphere with a gross bang. There’s a Night of the Demons-ish (1988-) smuttiness to be found as a demon-possessed woman gauges a priest’s eyes and jams his face into her… ummmm, yeah. While not terribly graphic, there are some very perverse scenes.
The sloppy special effects and rigid soap opera acting are readily forgiven when just below the ugly crusty demon faces, we find perfect boobs. Yup, of course. This is exactly the kind of movie that 14-year-old me rented and thought this was the best thing ever back in 1995.
Granny (Stella Stevens; The Terror Within II, The Manitou, Monster in the Closet) has invited her whole greedy, loveless family for Thanksgiving. They’re morally bankrupt people and they all want her dead so they can collect the insurance money.
Like Death Becomes Her (1992), Granny is given a potion (of youth or immortality or something) of great power and great consequence. But when the potion is corrupted, her cat is the first to change. The cat undergoes a laughable yet awesomely bad gory transformation as its skin peels back to expose the gnarly monstrosity beneath.
The death scenes are done cheaply, but they remain entertaining. A plastic surgeon gets cut up, a mink-obsessed heiress is torn apart by the animated minks of Granny’s coat, a horny uncle gets his member scissored off (off-screen) and a teenager gets a pro-wrestling death. Then the whole family is raised as ghouls along with a hilariously puppeted Grandpa who gross-kisses Granny. LOL
Our fiendish Granny toys with her victims and cackles just like Freddy Krueger in a way that feels really quite deliberate but even hokier. There’s a lot of goofy shenanigans. So this is an extremely obvious B-horror comedy.
There’s really no reason to recommend this movie. But if you enjoy a deliciously bad movie from time to time, you could do a lot worse. I enjoy how silly it gets, but wish it had a little more budget to throw into its gore and death scenes. I was also very disappointed we didn’t get a monster cat attack a la The Kiss (1988). I mean, come on. You don’t make a monster cat in Act 1 unless it’s going to attack someone in Act 3—Chekhov’s Monster Cat, right?
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The Last Duel (2021) – Review: Ridley Scott Has Crafted Another Daring and Exciting Epic
Quick Thoughts – Grade – A – Ridley Scott has crafted another daring and narratively interesting film that will hopefully be appreciated come awards time. The adaptation of the 2004 book The Last Duel: A True Story of Trial by Combat in Medieval France, is a thrilling piece of storytelling that covers the leadup to the infamous 1386 duel from the eyes of three separate characters, who all see what transpires in different ways.
What’s beautiful about The Last Duel is that it’s a 152-minute big budget epic that’s aimed towards adults looking for a narratively rich film that features sword fights, court cases, and Matt Damon rocking a beautiful mullett. The screenplay by Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and Nicole Holofcener is inspired because it asks for the audience to pay attention, as the narrative shifts from the three central characters played by Matt Damon, Jodie Comer, and Adam Driver. Damon and Affleck wrote the male perspective, while Holofcener wrote the female perspective, and combined, their script is wickedly funny, and thoughtful.
What makes the movie so much better is knowing it’s based on a true story, and that the duel that took place between Sir Jean de Carrouges (Matt Damon), and Jacques Le Gris (Adam Driver), is the last officially recognized duel in French history. Normally, a duel to the death is wild enough, but this one had the caveat that if Sir Jean was killed, his wife Marguerite de Carrouges (Jodie Comer) would have been burnt at the stake, because it would mean her allegations that caused the duel were false. Basically, If Le Gris wins, god willed it, which means he’s innocent and did not rape Marguerite. The only reason Sir Jean is fighting this fight is because wants to protect his reputation (not avenge his wife), and in the 1300s, sexual assault was not a crime against a woman, but a property crime against her husband. Thus, the attacked woman couldn’t do anything, and it was up to her husband to take the other man to court.
This is where the three chapters come into play. Each of the characters have their own section of the film, where we see the story through their eyes. The first chapter involves Sir Jean de Carrouges, a human bulldog, who when entering a fight, says “This is what I do.” He’s almost impossible to kill, he annoys many around him, and his bullish ways have seen him fall out of favor with Count Pierre d’Alençon (Ben Affleck – give him an Oscar nom), who much prefers Jacques Le Gris, whose charming demeanor and intelligence make him fun to be around. After going broke due to bad business decisions, and not enough booksmarts, Sir Jean, who is a widow, marries the charming Marguerite, whose father is a traitor to the throne, and needed a guy like Sir Jean to make his family somewhat respectable again. Things take a horrible turn when Marguerite is sexually assaulted by Le Gris, while Sir Jean is collecting money, and isn’t at his castle. This is where the movie rewinds, as we see the same situation played out two more times, but in the eyes of Le Gris and Marguerite. It all leads to an insane brawl that features Matt Damon and Adam Driver showcasing their physicality as they beat the heck out of each other.
The cinematography by Dariusz Wolski (The Martian, News of the World, Prometheus), is wonderful, as it captures the grime and grit of the battles, and subtly shifts when each character gets their chapter. What’s neat is that the fights and battles remind viewers of the skirmishes in Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven (both directed by Scott), which feature beautiful violence and a massive scope. Since it’s a Ridley Scott film, the costume design by Janty Yates (Gladiator, Kingdom of Heaven, Robin Hood), and production design by Arhur Max (Gladiator, The Martian, Kingdom of Heaven) are excellent, and it’s no wonder why Scott keeps the same crew for his films, and they must speak a shorthand, and are able to work efficiently and quickly.
It’s nice seeing Damon play such a violent bulldog, who somehow, after all three chapters, comes across as the most moral (this isn’t saying much, he does some horrible things, and is totally self-absorbed) of the characters. His physicality is 100% believable, and it’s easy to believe he’d survive countless wars and battles. As always, if you want a charming villain, it doesn’t get any better than Adam Driver, who really leans into his large frame, and can bounce between likable, sad, desperate, charming and horrible in about three seconds. The MVPs are Jodie Comer and Ben Affleck, who both excel at their roles, and seem to understand exactly what is needed of them. Comer has to put in three different performances, as she’s seen through the eyes of two men, then is able to tell her story, and it’s a highlight of the film. Also, it would be great to see Affleck be nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar because every time he’s on screen, the movie is better.
Final thoughts: Watch it in theaters. It’s daring, fun and features a beautiful final fight.
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The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast – Episode 391: Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, Prequels, and Bill Nighy
You can download or stream the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker (or wherever you listen to podcasts…..we’re almost everywhere).
If you get a chance please make sure to review, rate and share. You are awesome!
Mark and David Cross (of the Award Weiners Movie Review Podcast) discuss the 2009 film Underworld: Rise of the Lycans. Directed by Patrick Tatopoulos, and starring Bill Nighy, Rhona Mitra, and Michael Sheen, this Underworld sequel goes back in time to explore why werewolves hate vampires so much. In this episode, they talk about large arrows, action Sheen, and epic speeches. Enjoy!
If you are a fan of the podcast, make sure to send in some random listener questions (we love random questions). We thank you for listening, and hope you enjoy the episode!
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John’s Horror Corner: The Last Shark (1981; aka L’ultimo squalo, The Last Jaws, Great White), an Italian B-movie Jaws rip-off.
MY CALL: This B-movie Jaws (1975) rip-off is 60 minutes of general boredom followed by 20 minutes of decent bad movie fun. But if you’re looking for a fun bad movie in general, this is a decent sleepy Sunday afternoon choice. MORE MOVIES LIKE The Last Shark: If you want more movies inspired by Jaws (1975), I’d direct you to Piranha (1978) or Piranha 3D (2010), Crawl (2019), 47 Meters Down (2017) or Shark Night 3D (2011)… not to mention Deep Blue Sea (1999) and The Shallows (2016).
After what I can only describe as three straight minutes of awkward softcore windsurfing porn, the movie corrects its horrible misstep with a shark attack. The shark POV is no more menacing than peaceful underwater shots of coral reef and school fish, yet leads to our shark takes a chunk out of the windsurf board. Unfortunately, we see as little blood as we do the shark—which is to say none at all.
Rather blatantly, we are introduced to characters that are carbon copies of Jaws’ (1975) Quint, Brody (here as Peter – James Franciscus; Killer Fish) and the ambitious local mayor. This beach town is approaching a major televised windsurfing competition and the mayor will not see it canceled over a few shark-related deaths. Deny, deny, deny, right? Only quite contrary to its 1975 source material, in this movie the mayor and our Quint character work together to keep beach-goers safe rather than having the problem largely ignored.
It pains me that this was only PG! Although clearly PG-13 by today’s standards. There’s slow-motion bikini running but no nudity (not that it would have enhanced this movie), there’s shark footage of a rather narrow-snouted normal-sized shark but the on-screen shark attacks are some humungous broad-faced monstrosity of a great white, and most shark shots seem to just be nature show stock footage. A few shots show the bloated shark emerging from the water and, when it does, it’s momentarily satisfying.
Director Enzo G. Castellari’s (Escape from the Bronx, Warriors of the Wasteland) movie starts slowly with the action, from almost none in the beginning to just a little in the middle. We do see windsurfers knocked off balance into the water, a lone severed limb, swimmers yanked beneath the water’s surface, sand the occasional comical catapulting of a motorboat and its human (or dummy) occupant into the air as if a bomb went off underneath them.
But finally after an hour we finally get to SEE something when someone is hanging from a helicopter and has both their legs bitten off! It’s bad, but it’s delightfully awesome—and it’s one of the most worthwhile scenes in this entire movie. Other highlights include pulling a man out of the water to discover he’s missing his lower half in a chunky gory mess (a gag well-utilized by the various Piranha), and the shark’s eventual defeat is a bloody underwater explosion.
After a very, very slow start, overall this movie is mildly entertaining and I certainly enjoyed a few laughs—even if biased towards the final third. But still, the movie isn’t really worth it unless you’re a fan of the era, Jaws rip-offs, or hokey Italian 80s horror. But if you’re looking for a fun bad movie in general, this is a decent Sunday afternoon choice.
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John’s Horror Corner: The Horror Show (1989; aka House 3), this mock-NOES sequel feels nothing like a House sequel… but I like it anyway.
MY CALL: This wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected. In fact, it wasn’t bad at all! Very enjoyable with solid special effects and a decently made Freddy-esque 80s boogeyman movie. MORE MOVIES LIKE The Horror Show: If you watched this thinking it was House 3, then I assume you saw House (1986) and House II: The Second Story (1987). For more “Electric Chair” horror, try Shocker (1989), Tales from the Crypt, Season 1 (1989) and Prison (1987). But more than anything I’d liken this movie to A Nightmare on Elm Street parts 3-5 (1987-1989).
With a head cooking in a diner fryer, another plated for a meal, a screaming severed head, and cop with his arms chopped off to bloody stumps crying that he did his best, this movie uses goofy gore gags while telling its story with a mostly straight face as Detective McCarthy (Lance Henriksen; Man’s Best Friend, The Visitor, Pumpkinhead, Harbinger Down, Hellraiser VIII, Near Dark, Piranha II) hunts down the serial killer Meat Cleaver Max (Brion James; Tango & Cash, The Fifth Element, Nemesis).
Traumatized by Max’s very existence, McCarthy attends his electric chair execution, which is wild and gory down to pulsating skin from boiling blood (like, think Scanners finale). But after the killer is taken down, McCarthy continues to suffer nightmares and paranoia.
After receiving some unbelievable warnings from a parapsychology professor (Thom Bray; The Prowler, Prince of Darkness, DeepStar Six) with some crazy ideas that Max is somehow not gone for good, McCarthy tries to get on with his life. But hungry for revenge from beyond the grave, Max comes back using the very electricity that cooked him in the chair.
The special effects are actually pretty good! The cleaver wounds are gaping and fleshy, the blood is abundant, and then there was the dinner scene. The dinner scene is something straight out of a Freddy sequel (e.g., The Dream Child). The effects for this scene are a bit hokey, but delightful in an 80s kind of way as a turkey grows tendrils and has an unnervingly off-center human face (of Max) on the side of the turkey head which giggles at McCarthy tauntingly.
I’m a bit confused as to the association between this movie and the House movies, unless it was only to garner sales overseas using the popular predecessors in name alone. Probably just the marketing people, I guess. But as dissimilar as it is to House (1986), Wes Craven’s DNA abounds in this movie. Likewise in sync with Freddy, Max appears amidst a TV program heckling McCarthy, Max is basically a boogeyman returning from the dead for his revenge against his condemners and their children, and there are several scenes focused on a basement wood-burning furnace. There’s even the classic Freddy’s-face-pushing-through pregnancy scene as we saw in early NOES movies through the wall (part 1), stomach (part 2) and TV (part 3). Director James Isaac’s (Pig Hunt, Skinwalkers, Jason X) NOES influences are worn proudly on his sleeve. There’s even a little jingle they play that sounds like the NOES jingle.
This wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected. In fact, it wasn’t bad at all! I quite enjoyed it. Nothing epic, but a very enjoyable and decently made Freddy-esque 80s horror movie. Truly, it would make a good double feature with any of NOES 3-5.
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Nashville FIlm Festival – Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror (2021) – Review
Quick Thoughts – Grade – B – Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror is an expansive and educational look into the history of folk horror. Make sure to have a pen and paper nearby, because if you aren’t totally knowledgeable about the genre, you are going to write down a bunch of movies you’ll want to watch.
A big thank you to the Nashville Film Festival for the screener. More reviews to come! You should definitely check out the festival in 2022, you will see some excellent films.
Something random happened the day after watching this documentary. While watching, I found myself taking notes about all the folk horror movies that have gone under my radar. One of the movies that was added to the list was The Lair of the White Worm (1988 – It’s on Amazon Prime now), a wild looking movie which was directed by Ken Russell (The Devils, Altered States), and adapted from a Bram Stoker story. That day, John Leavengood (of John’s Horror Corner on MFF- Follow him on Twitter) posted a review of the film, and the obvious coincidence inspired me to start hunting down more folk horror that I haven’t watched. It’s a random aside, but it’s proof that this documentary opened up a whole new world of films I’ve missed.
Directed and produced by Kier-La Janisse (who wrote the popular book House of Psychotic Women), who started working on this documentary as a half-hour bonus feature for Severin Films (who also produced this doc), Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror has grown into an enlightening behemoth that covers over 240 films during its 194-minute running time. What’s nice is that fans of The Wicker Man (the original), or the recently released The Witch, or Midsommar, will be drawn in, and will definitely understand a genre that is much larger than anyone would think (aside from horror scholars). It’s pretty great that this documentary grew into what it is now, because it means Janisse wasn’t happy with just slapping together a 90-minute doc that only covered the mainstream folk horror hits, and call it a day.
The doc starts off by covering the folk horror unholy trinity of Witchfinder General, The Blood On Satan’s Claw, and The Wicker Man. Then dives into movies like Haxan (1922) and The Golem (1915), which came long before the 1960s/1970s classics, but didn’t make as much of an impact as the three British folk horror films. With the big-hitters out of the way, the doc moves on to Midsommar, The Skeleton Key, Lake Mungo, The Company of Wolves, Children of the Corn, and various international features to have an almost complete guide of the folk horror genre.
What’s nice about the documentary are the occasional poems, folk songs, and animated collage sequences that break up the talking heads and movie clips. A lot of work went into this doc, and it’s cool seeing the 100% Tomatometer rating, and 7.5 IMDb score. Works like this should be appreciated, because they enlighten, educate and offer something new to fans of cinema who want to learn more about the medium.
The only thing that kept this documentary from getting a higher grade, is in its quest to cover 200+ movies, it never fully explores many of them. It makes sense that production stories weren’t shared, as Janisse wanted to focus on themes of folk horror and scholarship, but it would’ve been nice to hear about the trials and tribulations of the productions that introduced the world to babies being turned into mush (The Witch), or featured hellish descents into satanism and the occult (The Blood on Satan’s Claws). These films either came from national trauma, or were created by directors who grew up watching them, and it would be cool to hear about why they exist. It sounds extreme to drop a grade because the documentary didn’t fit into expectations, but, with so much covered, it’s easy to forget about 90% of it.
Final thoughts: If you are a fan of cinema, and want to learn more, you should watch this documentary and learn about some cool films.
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MY CALL: If you had a made for TV werewolf movie (like rated PG), then added some brutal attack/death scenes, great gore and monster effects, and a curiously long, rather graphic and very out of place sex scene, this is what you’d end up with. But guess what? Those creature effects and gore and attacks… they were pretty awesome! So I’ll give this a soft recommendation for werewolf movie fans.
MORE WEREWOLF MOVIES: The best werewolf movies would have to be An American Werewolf in London (1981; semi-humorous), Silver Bullet (1985), Ginger Snaps (2000; metaphoric), Dog Soldiers (2002; unconventional) and The Howling (1981; serious).
If you want another utterly ridiculous werewolf movie, then move on to Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf (1985), Howling 3: The Marsupials (1987) and Wolfcop (2014).
And for more stylish werewolf movies The Company of Wolves (1984), Meridian (1990), Cursed (2005; cliché-loaded and contemporary), Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed (2004), Wolf (1994), Wer (2013), The Wolfman (2010), An American Werewolf in Paris (1997), Late Phases (2014), Howl (2015), Raw (2016), Good Manners (2017; aka, As Boas Maneiras) and the Underworld movies (2003, 2006, 2009, 2012) are also worth a watch.
We could consider that Waxwork (1988), Trick ‘r Treat (2007), Van Helsing (2004), Monster Squad (1987) and many others also feature werewolves, but not to such centerpiece extent that I’d call them “werewolf movies.”
Bad Moon opens with the kind of jungle sets and film quality you’d expect from a TV movie (or an adult movie)… ah, the video era, right? Speaking of adult movies, there’s a really, really long sex scene and I’m beginning to wonder just how serious of a movie this is until that poor naked woman is torn from her tent by a hulking werewolf and lacerated to bloody scraps on-screen. So, perhaps I misjudged this movie.
The bloody attack isn’t at all brief, boasts a lot of good latex wound work, and culminates in the beast having its head explode (again, all on-screen) from a gunshot. In a span of 4 minutes I went from dreading watching the rest of this probably softcore adult movie, to thinking it’s already awesome!
After the brutal loss of his girlfriend, Ted (Michael Paré; 100 Feet) was wounded by the wolf-like creature before dispatching the monster into a chunky mess. So now infected with lycanthropy, Ted stays with his sister Janet (Mariel Hemingway; Superman IV) out in the woods to lay low as the dead bodies of hikers pile up in the surrounding forest.
Unlike most werewolf movies, we know right away who the werewolf is, and little is left to subtlety. Ted’s camper has a microscope, vials of dark red fluids and occult trinkets beside a book entitled “Werewolf Lore.” Yup, the filmmakers were indeed that worried the audience wouldn’t be able to keep up. Were it not for the graphic, visceral gore and the extremely out of place, lengthy and graphic sex scene, you’d almost mistake this for a kids’ horror movie.
The werewolf special effects is a man in a suit with an animatronic head, and it looks pretty darn good! For whatever reason, it sounds like a creature from Jurassic Park (1993).
Not unlike Skinwalkers (2006), this has the look, feel, photography and scoring of a made-for-TV werewolf movie for the Hallmark Channel. But unlike Skinwalkers (2006), this had many redeeming scenes and I actually enjoyed this. Much of the photography seems amateur, but the gore and horror shots deliver every bit of entertainment we were looking for. Director Eric Red (100 Feet, Body Parts) did well by us.
The gore action isn’t super abundant, but when it’s there, it’s there! Mostly severed fingers dangle by fleshy strips from their hands, throats slash and spew blood, and flesh readily parts from its owner. And again, this werewolf monster suit looks great. After countless CGI werewolves, some better than others, it’s nice to see an old school tangible monster in the frame.
Other than the TV-ness, the major weakness of this movie is the transformation scene. It’s all cheap CGI (maybe the only CGI of the movie) and so bad they shouldn’t have even tried. This is perhaps the most woefully bad transformation scene I’ve endured. But for all the other perks of this movie, I completely forgive this misstep.
Far from great, but definitely satisfying to this old school werewolf movie fan, I enjoyed this as a light work-night viewing.
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Nashville Film Festival – Luzzu (2021) – Review: Alex Camilleri Has Crafted a Fantastic Film That You Should Check Out
Quick thoughts – Grade – A – Directed, edited, and written by Alex Camilleri, Luzzu tells the story of a man forced to decide between making an meager living as a fisherman, who is always dealing with his constantly leaking Luzzu (a traditional wooden fishing boat that has been in his family for generations), or working as a low-level henchmen for a shady black market fishery.
A big thank you to the Nashville Film Festival for the screener.
What’s wonderful about Luzzu is that you can feel the sweat, and almost smell the fish guts that are stuck to the shirt of Jesmark (Jesmark Scicluna – very natural and watchable), a down on his luck fisherman who can’t support his family with the meager earnings he makes while working as an independent fisherman in Malta. At his core, Jesmark seems like a decent man, but his dedication to an antiquated lifestyle have left him scrambling for money, unable to feed his young child, and constantly annoyed at his in-laws, who pay his families bills behind his back. It’s a tough situation, does he continue his family’s trade as a fisherman in Malta, or does he start working on commercial trawlers that rampage the coastal areas, and take money out of the pockets of local fishermen?
Luzzu is a thrilling movie that makes you emotionally invested in wood boats, fishing lines, and cheap baby formula that gives infants gas. The majority of the credit goes to Alex Camilleri, who won national funding in Malta, and used his training at the Sundance and Film Independent labs to create a fantastic debut film. To prepare for the film, Camilleri, whose parents immigrated from Malta, spent two years there, where he researched the fishing industry and interviewed fishermen to nail down the world. Also, his experience as an editor shows how he can take everyday experiences such as selling fish, or repairing fishing lines, and make them feel exciting and vibrant. The film never feels precious, or overly manicured, and instead feels wildly authentic (bear in mind, I know nothing about fishing in Malta), and confident, as it focuses on a man having to grow up, and realize times are changing, as commercials business and black market ventures are making his life impossible to sustain.
The cinematography by Léo Lefèvre adds to the level of authenticity as there’s a fly on the wall aesthetic that constantly follows Jesmark around as he’s seemingly always late for something. The 1.85 :1 adds a nice widescreen feel to the movie, and the Arri Alexa Mini does a great job collecting natural light, and making the coastlines look romantic and worth fighting for.
To top everything off, the central performance from Scicluna is excellent, as he pulls off the struggle of always being one step behind. You believe how much he loves his son, who requires special dietary needs, and he clearly loves his wife, who is beginning to lose faith in him, and is tired of being the one who makes the money. Scicluna was hired two years before the movie started filming, and his experiences allowed Camilleri to finetune his script, and work around Scicluna’s strengths as an actor, and active fisherman, who looks comfortable on a boat, and knows the world inside out. It’s no surprise that his performance won him the World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.
If you’re looking for an excellent and authentic film that makes you feel like you are on the Luzzu with the characters, you should check out Luzzu.
Movies, Films & Flix 