In Theaters: CRAWL (2019)

CRAWL 
(US - 2019)

Directed by Alexandre Aja. Written by Michael Rasmussen and Shawn Rasmussen. Cast: Kaya Scodelario, Barry Pepper, Morfydd Clark, Ross Anderson, Anson Boon, Ami Metcalf, Jose Palma, George Somner. (R, 87 mins)

Or, GATORS IN A CRAWLSPACE, but that might be a little too SNAKES ON A PLANE-y. Mostly stupidly enjoyable if you shut your brain off completely, CRAWL is a disaster movie/nature run amok mash-up from director Alexandre Aja, one of the key figures in France's "extreme horror" movement from a decade and a half ago. After HIGH TENSION hit the US in 2005, Aja was courted by Hollywood and made the better-than-expected remake of THE HILLS HAVE EYES, but beyond that, his output has ranged from "Meh" with MIRRORS and HORNS to "Are you for real with this shit?" with his inexplicably fanboy-approved remake of PIRANHA, the horror equivalent of a Friedberg/Seltzer spoof movie. After somewhat of a departure with 2016's little-seen THE 9TH LIFE OF LOUIS DRAX, Aja returns to horror with the Sam Raimi-produced CRAWL, working from a script by Michael and Shawn Rasmussen, the sibling team that penned 2011's THE WARD, John Carpenter's last film to date and among his least essential.

College student Haley Keller (Kaya Scodelario of the MAZE RUNNER franchise) is on the University of Florida swim team (yes, the Florida Gators). She gets a frantic phone call from her Boston-based older sister Beth (Morfydd Clark), who can't get a hold of their father Dave (Barry Pepper), who's a couple hours south of Gainesville with a Category 5 hurricane bearing down on the state. Estranged from Dave after her parents' recent divorce, Haley makes the drive through treacherous storm and ignores a road block in an area where people are being forced to evacuate. She ends up at the family home but Dave is nowhere to be found until his barking mutt Sugar alerts Haley to his whereabouts: a quickly-flooding crawlspace under the house where he's bloodied and unconscious with a snapped leg. He comes to, tells her he was down there trying to cover the vents before the storm hit but had a run-in with an unexpected guest: a large alligator that's decided to call the crawlspace home and soon makes its presence known to Haley. She and Dave are able to hide behind a de facto fort of pipes that have been arranged in a way to maximize plot convenience, but before long, a second gator appears. And there's some hatched eggs, as it seems the Keller home, escrowed in the recent divorce, has an unexpected family of squatters brought in by the hurricane. Then some of their relatives start showing up.

CRAWL is a situation begging for Robert Forster but, like Cecile de France in HIGH TENSION, Scodelario displays a good amount of grit and toughness. This is the kind of film where a father and daughter decide to work out their issues as they're under siege by ferocious alligators. It's the kind of movie where Dave says "Be quiet!" only they both continue their loud conversation as Haley wades through the water to retrieve her phone. It's the kind of movie where Haley again tries to silently wade through the rising flood water but her foot hits a submerged cage, prompting an alligator reaction shot. It's the kind of post-QUIET PLACE horror movie that thinks alligators are blind and if you stand perfectly still, they won't know you're there. It's the kind of movie where Dave's leg is snapped and Haley's leg and arm have been chomped on, but they somehow manage to continue wading and swimming, walking it off like Werner Herzog being grazed by an insignificant bullet. CRAWL also amuses in that it's one of these movies shot in Eastern Europe--Belgrade, in this case--and Dave's house is in a cul-de-sac with a strangely-placed gas station right in the center of it, clearly the kind of "average Florida neighborhood" that could only exist in the imagination of an outsourced Serbian production design team. But there's really no use being snarky and nit-picky--CRAWL is what it is. The CGI gators look better then expected, there's a couple of good jump scares, and Scodelario (also terrific in the recent EXTREMELY WICKED, SHOCKINGLY EVIL AND VILE) is a solid heroine you can get behind. Still...this really feels like a Netflix Original that's accidentally been released in theaters.

On DVD/Blu-ray: BEYOND THE REACH (2015) and THE PYRAMID (2014)

BEYOND THE REACH
(US - 2015)

From 1987's FATAL ATTRACTION through 2001's DON'T SAY A WORD, Michael Douglas had a remarkable run as the king of the controversial, hot-button hit. Whether it was WALL STREET or BASIC INSTINCT or FALLING DOWN or DISCLOSURE and others (you could even go back further and include 1979's THE CHINA SYNDROME), Douglas' string of hits were routinely the subject of water-cooler discussion and zeitgeist-capturing debate. Douglas' star no longer shines like it once did and the movies aren't as attention-getting, but he's kept busy in recent years, even attempting to recapture some of that Gordon Gekko magic in Oliver Stone's dismal WALL STREET: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS (2010). The thriller BEYOND THE REACH finds him in prime "smug, entitled asshole" mode, like a fusion of Douglas' Gekko and his murderous husband in 1998's DIAL M FOR MURDER remake A PERFECT MURDER, and he seems to be enjoying every minute of it. Produced by Douglas, BEYOND THE REACH would've been a hit if it came out 15 years ago, but was only released on 27 screens in the US for a gross of $46,000--a far cry from the actor's early '90s glory days. Douglas is John Madec, a multi-millionaire insurance exec who stops in a small town outside the Mojave Desert to hire a tracker to help him bag a bighorn sheep. The sheriff (Ronny Cox) tells deputy Ben (Jeremy Irvine), "the best tracker in the state," to take Madec out beyond "The Reach," a desolate area of the Mojave. Because he calls the shots in the boardroom, Madec doesn't really care that he's total amateur hour outside the security of a canned trophy hunt, careless with his high-tech weapon and operating under the belief that wealth and privilege trump safety and knowledge. Madec is a man who gets what he wants and brazenly advertises that he's the most important guy in the room (he even parks his obscene, $500,000 Mercedes 6x6 off-road-vehicle--with an espresso machine and calibrated convection oven for perfectly-grilled steaks--across three spots outside the sheriff's office). Madec makes Gordon Gekko look humble, and when he isn't on his phone brokering the sale of his company to some Chinese businessmen, he waxes rhapsodic to Ben about his favorite subject: John Madec. An unimpressed Ben goes along to get along, even taking a bribe when he learns Madec doesn't have a hunting license, but things quickly go south when Madec impulsively shoots something moving in the distance--something that turns out to be a local prospector. Madec uses his manipulative sales techniques to cajole Ben into burying the body and buying his silence with the promise of a college education and a future career, an agreement settled with a bloody handshake. But when Ben's conscience kicks in, he tries to radio back to town and Madec decides Ben has to die--not by gunshot, but by stripping down to his boxers and walking across The Reach, barefoot and without water, in the blistering 120°F sun, with Madec following close behind to ensure he dies of heatstroke. It's like a class struggle version of Tuco's desert torture of Blondie in THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY.

Based on Robb White's 1972 YA novel Deathwatch and previously made into the 1974 ABC TV-movie SAVAGES with Andy Griffith and Sam Bottoms, BEYOND THE REACH works when it's a tense game of cat-and-mouse between Madec and Ben. But screenwriter Stephen Susco (THE GRUDGE, TEXAS CHAINSAW) and director Jean-Baptiste Leonetti throw in a lot of inconsequential padding, like Ben moping around over his girlfriend (Hanna Mangan Lawrence) going off to college and entirely too much time spent on Madec's uninteresting deal with the Chinese. As the film proceeds, it starts relying on contrivances and gets increasingly cartoonish, with Madec sipping martinis and blaring classical music in the middle of The Reach while waiting for the right moment to shoot Ben from a distance (also, they're out in The Reach for several days--wouldn't the sheriff come looking for them at some point?). Douglas is obviously enjoying the opportunity to ham it up, but it undermines the genuine suspense of the early-going, and by the time the climax rolls around, Susco and Leonetti have completely driven things off the cliff, with a coda that's more at home in a slasher movie than it is here. Madec is a rich asshole--he's not an unstoppable killing machine.  BEYOND THE REACH is entertaining enough and at just 90 minutes, it's never boring, but the additions made to the story just end up being extraneous filler that does it no favors. It's nice to see Douglas--who, at 70, is looking more like his dad than ever--sinking his teeth into the sadistic extreme of the kind of role he used to own, but BEYOND THE REACH just gets too beyond silly for its own good. (R, 92 mins)


THE PYRAMID
(US - 2014)

20th Century Fox planned on opening THE PYRAMID on over 2000 screens until shortly before its December 2014 release, when some studio exec must've accidentally watched it and it was abruptly scaled back to around 600, essentially a tacit admission that 600 screens would be 600 too many. Produced by Alexandre Aja (HIGH TENSION, the remake of THE HILLS HAVE EYES) and the debut directing effort by his longtime writing partner Gregory Levasseur, THE PYRAMID is yet another faux-doc/found-footage time waster, centering on a bickering father-daughter archaeologist team (Denis O'Hare, Ashley Hinshaw) investigating an underground, three-sided pyramid in Egypt that's supposedly been unexplored for untold millennia. They're being tailed by a documentary crew, but Levasseur can't be bothered to establish any consistency in the way the film is shot. Sometimes it's documentary shaky-cam, sometimes it's a straight narrative horror movie, switching back and forth at random. Once inside the pyramid, they encounter feral, cat-type creatures and are picked off one by one by a larger monster, ultimately concluding that the pyramid is a) the prison of Anubis, the heart-weighing, heart-devouring jackal god of ancient Egypt, and b) probably still a more pleasant place to be trapped than inside a theater showing THE PYRAMID. Most of the film consists of screeching characters running around in total darkness, and what little you can see isn't scary or even remotely interesting. The worst film to come from the Aja camp since the remake of PIRANHA, THE PYRAMID is further evidence that this style of horror film has just run its course and should be mercifully taken off life support. Dull, uninspired, impossibly lazy, and filled with the kind of stupid dialogue exchanges where people are having things they should already know clumsily explained to them strictly for the sake of informing the audience, THE PYRAMID is so bad that it may actually induce a newfound appreciation for the similarly-set AS ABOVE SO BELOW. You're better off just listening to Mercyful Fate's 1993 song "Egypt," which essentially tells the whole Anubis/Osiris story in a more coherent fashion, with the added bonus of some killer guitar work and King Diamond's signature falsettos. (R, 89 mins)

On DVD/Blu-ray: STARRY EYES (2014); EXISTS (2014); and HORNS (2014)

STARRY EYES
(US/Belgium - 2014)

In horror circles, STARRY EYES was hailed as an instant cult classic almost immediately after it played the festival circuit and hit the VOD rounds last fall. I always get a little skeptical when today's horror fans latch on to something, because that's when you get conned by things like The Legend of Ti West and the absurd notion that THE INNKEEPERS is a good movie, or that Alexandre Aja's PIRANHA is "like, totally old-school exploitation!" Mind you, there's a great idea at the heart of STARRY EYES, and there's some cutting observations about the culture of Hollywood, the pretentiousness and the catty one-upmanship and those would-be stars working mundane day jobs when they aren't trying to catch a break at an audition. It also sports a supporting cast filled with minor cult figures like SOMEONE'S KNOCKING AT THE DOOR and DEADGIRL's Noah Segan, RED, WHITE & BLUE stars Amanda Fuller and Marc Senter, COMPLIANCE prank caller Pat Healy, and a KISS Kameo by professional wealthy offspring Nick Simmons.  But in its execution, STARRY EYES is impossibly heavy-handed, making its points in the most suffocatingly ham-fisted and overly literal ways imaginable, and it just gets dumb and dumber as it goes along. In an undeniably strong and demanding performance that hints at deeper issues haunting the character, Alexandra Essoe is Sarah Walker, a Big Taters waitress struggling to make it as an actress. She gets an audition for a horror film called THE SILVER SCREAM, produced by Astraeus Pictures, a once-notable studio now sort-of on the skids. It's an unusual audition held by a pair of eccentrics, but she gets a callback that consists of a lot of flash photos in a dark room. She's then called to meet with the producer (Louis Dezseran), an aging Roger Corman-type who unsubtly tries to get her on the casting couch. Initially rejecting but having a change of heart after she quits her job and sees her roommates and friends going nowhere in their own acting and filmmaking pursuits, she caves to the producer's demands that she "show" how dedicated she is and that she make the appropriate "sacrifice."

Of course, there's something more sinister afoot, as the writing/directing team of Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer have shown the producer with a pentagram burned into his hand and his assistant (Maria Olsen, fast becoming the Michael Berryman of today's DIY hipster horror scene) wearing a pentagram necklace. Yes, they're all Satanists, and their cult is fame, the central conceit of STARRY EYES being a literal death and rebirth as your old self dies--the sacrifice--and a star is born. After fellating the producer, Sarah's body starts breaking down in Cronenbergian fashion, and also in ways very similar to the awful slut-shaming body-horror film CONTRACTED. There's a cynical message here that all Hollywood success stories are rooted in evil, soulless vanity, but that shouldn't surprise anyone after ALL ABOUT EVE. By the time Sarah vomits maggots and starts offing her friends in ways that will even have the most seen-it-all gorehounds flinching, the filmmakers have her literally stabbing one in the back in order to make sure you're getting the message that she's not the same old Sarah. It's all rather obvious and while Kolsch and Widmyer take the L.A. scenester-types to task early on, the notion of "breaking through the gate" and achieving fame and fortune by selling your soul to Satan isn't exactly a high concept if you've ever heard of Faust. This has its moments, augmented by a very John Carpenter-esque synth score by Jonathan Snipes, but I'm really at a loss as to what movie everyone saw when they got on the STARRY EYES love train and declared it a modern horror classic. (Unrated, 96 mins)


EXISTS
(US - 2014)

After co-directing the 1999 phenomenon THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, Eduardo Sanchez has stayed busy with DTV or limited theatrical release horror titles like ALTERED (2006), SEVENTH MOON (2009), and the critically-acclaimed LOVELY MOLLY (2012). Sanchez has never had the accolades nor the success that BLAIR WITCH brought him, so now, 15 years later, he's back sucking from the faux-doc/found footage teet with EXISTS, just as the subgenre he helped make mainstream is falling out of favor with fans. Obviously, Sanchez is an old pro at this kind of thing, and EXISTS has a handful of well-done set pieces, but you have to wade through an hour of dudebro dialogue, idiotic characters, several long sequences in night-vision or almost total darkness, and plenty of time to ponder the age-old question in this type of horror film: why are you still filming? Five dumbasses (two couples and the obligatory comic-relief fifth wheel who does all the filming) head to a remote cabin in the woods (owned by the uncle of two of the dudes, who actually are bros) for a weekend of beer, weed, and doing generally EXTREME! shit, all to be documented in its entirety on their GoPro cameras. Their SUV hits something, and only a blurred figure is seen on the playback, but once they're at the cabin, a howling in the woods convinces the goof of the group (Chris Osborn) that they're dealing with Bigfoot. Even if EXISTS wasn't rendered moot arriving so soon after Bobcat Goldthwait's Bigfoot-themed WILLOW CREEK, one of the better recent found-footage offerings, it can't overcome a deadly first half with some of the most irritating characters the subgenre has ever offered. Most of the dialogue is along the lines of "What the fuck was that, bro?" or "What the fuck's goin' on here, bro," and "You killed my friend, motherfucker!" as one fires a shotgun blindly in the dark, which of course attracts the creature and promptly gets the trigger-happy bro's head bashed in. To his credit, Sanchez does get some serious momentum going as the five get whittled down to three and they try to venture through the woods to find the highway. Naturally, one's surefire shortcut results in them getting lost, but Sanchez knows how to do this right. He gets that climactic BLAIR WITCH vibe going in the last 20 or so minutes with the sprinting creature's relentless pursuit (one sudden appearance through a cloud of fireworks smoke is a good example of a jump scare done right), but it's still not enough to counter the damage caused by such a shitty script, penned by Sanchez's usual post-BLAIR WITCH writing partner Jamie Nash. It's maybe worth a Netflix stream on a really slow night if you're still a found-footage completist, but in returning to the woods to recapture some of his dwindling mojo, Sanchez remains doomed to spend the rest of his career in BLAIR WITCH's shadow. (R, 81 mins)

HORNS
(US - 2014)

Anything would be a step up for French horror director Alexandre Aja after his smug and miserable fakesploitation 2010 remake of PIRANHA, and while it's not always successful, HORNS is certainly ambitious. Based on Joe Hill's novel, the very busy HORNS crams a lot of story into two hours and even though plot points are rushed through or not fully fleshed-out, it still feels overlong, like it either needed to lose 20 or so minutes or just be extended to a cable miniseries. Letting the story breathe might've done a lot to smooth over the rough tonal shifts as HORNS careens from love story to murder mystery to dark satire to CGI-heavy supernatural horror in ways that probably read a lot better on the page than they play on the screen. That doesn't mean there aren't pleasures to be had in HORNS, which has its moments before collapsing into contrivance, convenience, and stupidity in its third act. Radio station DJ Ig Perrish (Daniel Radcliffe) is besieged by media and outraged citizens of his small town when his longtime girlfriend Merrin (Juno Temple) is found brutally murdered in the woods. Nobody believes he's innocent except his older brother Terry (Joe Anderson) and his lawyer best friend Lee (Max Minghella). The town thinks Ig is the devil, and it doesn't help his case that he sprouts a pair of horns out of his forehead overnight--horns that not everyone can see, but when they do, they feel compelled to confess their deepest secrets and their most bluntly honest thoughts. It's this portion of HORNS that works best, as Aja wrings much dark humor out of a mom openly admitting she hates her screaming child, a bartender crowing about his dogfighting ring and how his dream is to torch his bar and collect the insurance money, or Ig being hassled by two bullying cops who casually admit they'd rather be sucking each other off. It also generates some well-handled drama as Ig's mom (Kathleen Quinlan) and dad (James Remar) admit they think he's guilty and would rather never see him again ("I don't want you to be my son anymore, sweetheart," his mother explains). People of genuinely good character--like Lee and Merrin's grieving father (David Morse)--can't see the horns, and over time, Ig learns to use their power to his advantage, with a highlight being one hilarious sequence where he's followed by a small army of reporters and uses the horns to convince them to beat the living shit out of one another, with the winner getting an exclusive, tell-all interview (there's a great callback to this scene much later, as reporters are all outside a courthouse with cuts, bruises, and bandages). Flashbacks to their childhood fill in the blanks of how Ig and Merrin got together, the effect it had on Ig's relationship with his buddies, and what exactly led to his being accused of her murder.

Admirably gory and going all-in with hard-R glee, HORNS works best in its periodic black comedy phases. No matter how silly a film's premise, it can always work if it follows its own rules, which HORNS doesn't always do. The more it goes on, the more uneven it becomes, as Aja and screenwriter Keith Bunin (the HBO series IN TREATMENT) juggle elements of DONNIE DARKO, TWIN PEAKS, HELLBOY, GHOST RIDER, early Peter Jackson splatter comedy and, in a possible shout-out to Joe Hill's dad Stephen King, STAND BY ME and THE DEAD ZONE until they just drop the balls and let them scatter. It's entirely too easy to figure out who the real killer is and once it's revealed, there's still over 40 minutes to go as Aja embarks on a Peter Jackson climax spree and can't seem to decide where the movie should end. Even with all the plot, it still loses track of several major characters (Kelli Garner as the no-self-esteem, self-described "town whore" who's carried a torch for Ig since childhood, seems especially shortchanged), and Merrin's dad's eventual sympathizing with Ig feels rushed and unconvincing. It's definitely worth seeing once, as Radcliffe is quite good and the film is really firing on all cylinders when it's being funny--Heather Graham has a great bit as a diner waitress giving false info about Ig to the police in the hopes that it makes her the star witness at the eventual trial ("I'm gonna release my own sex tape and have a reality show and be on the cover of Us Magazine!" she squeals with wild-eyed glee)--but the more it goes on, the more of a unwieldy, undisciplined mess it becomes. (R, 120 mins, also streaming on Netflix Instant)

On DVD/Blu-ray: MANIAC (2013); THE COLONY (2013); and THE EAST (2013)

MANIAC
(France/US - 2013)

William Lustig's MANIAC (1980) is so representative of both '80s splatter and the grimy NYC sleaze of its era that a present-day remake seems like a hapless, watered-down proposition from the get-go.  Written and produced by Alexandre Aja and directed by Aja protégé Franck Khalfoun (P2), the 2013 version of MANIAC doesn't top Lustig's original, but it at least tries to be its own film and shows an obvious affinity for its source.  Moving the setting from NYC to some of the seedier parts of downtown Los Angeles doesn't really replicate that scuzzy feeling, but it sort-of suffices, as homicidal Frank (Elijah Wood in the iconic Joe Spinell role) slices and dices his way through a bevy of beautiful women he meets on dating sites, scalping them to adorn the mannequins in the fly-infested apartment behind his restoration shop.  Frank is dealing with unresolved mother issues, having endured a traumatic childhood that saw him witnessing Mom (America Olivo) abusing drugs and sleeping with numerous random men (the shot of her snorting coke while screwing two guys and catching young Frank watching her as she whispers "Mommy loves you" is undeniably haunting).  Frank meets French photographer Anna (Nora Arzeneder), whose specialty is, conveniently enough, mannequins (which seems like an easy way for her to overlook Frank's bizarre demeanor and his creepy collection; in a way, it's just as implausible as the schlubby, greasy Spinell attracting the attention of someone like Caroline Munro in the original), and, of course, becomes fixated on her.

The biggest change this new film makes is shooting it almost entirely from Frank's POV.  Wood primarily turns up as reflections in mirrors and windows, except for a few times when Khalfoun inexplicably bungles it and swings the camera around to show Frank actually killing people.  The POV is a nice touch, so it doesn't make sense and it's completely intrusive when Khalfoun breaks it, and it seems to have been done only to give Wood more screen time as he'd otherwise barely be visible.  Still, as far as remakes go, MANIAC '13 isn't bad, however unnecessary it may be.  The makeup effects by Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger are a nice mix of CGI and practical, with the blood looking appropriately wet and the flesh moist instead of completely cartoonish and badly-digitized.  When he sticks to the Frank POV, Khalfoun stages some nicely-done murder sequences, particularly the first one with the way the knife enters the frame.  Frank, who suffers from migraines, is also frequently sickened by his actions, which gives Khalfoun a good excuse for a suitably gross POV puking shot into a toilet.  I guess if MANIAC had to be remade, this turned out as good as it could've turned out, and the music score by "Rob" is a standout.  Face it, this could've just as easily been a neutered, PG-13, in-name-only revamp instead of the unrated gorefest that it is.  It's an admirable effort, better than anything with the name "Alexandre Aja" attached to it should be, and Wood gives it his all, but when I feel like watching MANIAC, I'm going with Joe Spinell.  (Unrated, 89 mins, also streaming on Netflix)


THE COLONY
(Canada - 2013)

Despite some occasionally effective location work at a decommissioned NORAD station, this tepid post-apocalyptic horror film is largely an uninspired coast that relies on clichés you've seen a hundred times in other, better movies.  In 2045, weather machines constructed to combat the sweltering effects of climate change malfunction and bring about an ice age, putting the entire planet in a deep freeze with never-ending snow.  Most of humanity has died off, but the few survivors find refuge in abandoned military facilities called "colonies," where food is scarce and illness rampant.  Even a common cold is enough to have someone banished to the elements or, if they choose, killed.  After receiving a distress call from nearby Colony 5, Colony 7 leader Briggs (Laurence Fishburne) takes Sam (Kevin Zegers) and Graydon (Atticus Mitchell) on an expedition to investigate.  They find a crazed, lone survivor (Julian Richings), who tells them that everyone has been killed.  The Colony 7 guys investigate and find what's left of Colony 5 overrun by a band of marauding, feral cannibals who have decided that human flesh is the answer to their food shortage.  Of course, the cannibals follow them back to Colony 7, where they also have to deal with Mason (Bill Paxton), a trigger-happy psycho who's taken over the leadership role in Briggs' absence and is only interested in thinning the herd so there's less mouths to feed.

I'm a sucker for a good cold, snowy, icy horror flick, but THE COLONY fails to take its place aside such iconic titles as THE SHINING or either version of THE THING.  It isn't even in the same league as WHITEOUT or the recent prequel THE THING.  At least WHITEOUT went to the trouble of CGI-ing some visible breath for the actors in the exterior scenes.  The interiors of the closed-up NORAD facility make a good location, but THE COLONY falls apart whenever anyone walks outside.  Everything is unconvincingly green-screened and cartoonishly CGI'd.  You never feel for one moment that these actors are out in the elements and not in a comfortable, climate-controlled studio standing in front of a screen.  The best kind of CGI is the kind that doesn't call attention to itself, and the CGI here is basically wearing a bright, flashing neon sign.  And once the cannibals make their way to the colony, the whole thing becomes yet another John Carpenter-styled siege scenario and a sort-of ASSAULT ON COLONY 7.  The film is directed by Jeff Renfroe, who primarily works in TV these days but previously made a pair of interesting and little-seen indies:  2004's Euro-dystopian PARANOIA 1.0 has Jeremy Sisto as a computer programmer who starts cracking up when mysterious packages keep appearing at his door, and 2007's CIVIC DUTY stars Peter Krause in an intense performance as a laid-off accountant with nothing but time on his hands, spending his days watching cable news and becoming increasingly obsessed with his new neighbor--a Muslim grad student--and convincing himself that the guy is a terrorist.  Both of these films have a powerful sense of paranoia and claustrophobia that would seem to be ideal for THE COLONY, but the artifice of the whole production design just keeps you at a distance.  While the film works best when it stays indoors, it has nothing unique or substantive to offer, doesn't even make any valid points on an environmental level, and exists only to provide easy paychecks for Fishburne and Paxton.  It took four screenwriters to come up with this?  (R, 94 mins)


THE EAST
(US - 2013)

Actress/screenwriter Brit Marling has made a name for herself on the indie and festival circuits over the last couple of years with 2011's ANOTHER EARTH (directed by Mike Cahill) and 2012's SOUND OF MY VOICE (directed by Zal Batmanglij).  Marling and Batmanglij team up again with THE EAST, which finds the creative pair getting a sizable budget boost courtesy of A-list producers Ridley Scott and Michael Costigan, and falling flat on their faces, with a story that travels a path that's too structurally similar to SOUND OF MY VOICE.  And where VOICE and ANOTHER EARTH were science fiction stories that could explain away some of the more outlandish plot elements, Marling seems to struggle when the plot is based in the real world and without a fantastic angle.  Marling stars as Sarah, a former FBI agent who lands a gig at a private company specializing in corporate espionage.  Her boss (Patricia Clarkson), hired by big money clients, assigns her to infiltrate The East, a domestic eco-terrorism outfit that's been targeting CEOs and various corporate big shots with such acts as flooding an oil honcho's house with crude after his company causes a massive oil spill.  In the first of many embarrassingly simplistic developments straight out of Plot Convenience Playhouse, it takes Sarah about a day to get into The East's inner circle, which she manages to accomplish via Craigslist and hanging out with some acoustic guitar-strumming hippies on the shore.  Of course she finds herself drawn to their charismatic leader Benji (Alexander Skarsgard) and comes to agree with The East's philosophies and practices (at times, with their straitjacket dinners and off-kilter rounds of Spin the Bottle--"May I hug you for one minute?"--they seem more like a cult), taking part in their projects (called "jams"), and her happy life with her nice but boring boyfriend (Jason Ritter) falls apart as she ignores her boss' most vital piece of advice: "Do not get soft."

Marling seems to have gotten soft with THE EAST.  Even with the formulaic plotting, it still could've been a solid, entertaining thriller.  But with the soapboxing (Sarah becomes a dumpster-diving freegan simply because Marling did that for a while as well) and the fact that, as a writer, the proselytizing Marling stacks the deck in The East's favor, even when they're crossing lines and doing some very bad things (like poisoning the board of directors of a pharmaceutical company), it's hard to really accept a lot of what transpires.  Look, I hate the sociopathic, profit-above-all mentality of these companies as well, but two wrongs don't make a right, and The East aren't meant to be idealized.  This should be a film with no heroes.  Explore that.  Explore the inner conflict instead of having Sarah merrily abandon everything.  Or at least have her abandon everything in a realistic fashion. The idea that the driven, ambitious Sarah is willing to drop her promising career, devoted boyfriend, and happy life in general to fall in with The East as quickly as she does is a metamorphosis that serves the filmmakers' agenda rather than the story.  The character arc is never believable for a second, and the third-act twist with the reveal of The East's final "jam" is only a surprise if you've never seen a movie before.  There are a few good scenes--fanatical East member Izzy (Ellen Page) forcing her chemical company CEO dad (Jamey Sheridan) and a company spokesperson to jump in toxic, polluted water is a memorable moment--and the potential was there for a good thriller, but Marling and Batmanglij can't stop shouting "MESSAGE!" long enough to focus on what's important.  Much like SOUND OF MY VOICE, THE EAST deals with an outsider infiltrating a secret organization (in SOUND, Marling played a manipulative cult leader who claimed to be from the future), but a bigger budget doesn't mean a better movie.  ANOTHER EARTH and SOUND OF MY VOICE were both original, intricate, and thought-provoking puzzles that established Marling as a major new indie talent both as an actress and a writer.  The studio-backed THE EAST, on the other hand, is clichéd, trite, and just plain dumb.  Welcome to Hollywood.  This is a rare case where you wish the suits would've intervened and taken the movie away from its makers.  (PG-13, 116 mins)