On DVD/Blu-ray: THE VOID (2017); MINDGAMERS (2017); and THE BYE BYE MAN (2017)

THE VOID
(Canada/US - 2017)

For children of the '80s who still hold dear the films of their formative years in that eventful decade of horror, it's always nice to see something new created by people who get it--filmmakers who get you and speak your language. The writing and directing team of Jeremy Gillespie & Steven Kostanski--part of the Canadian filmmaking collective Astron-6 (MANBORG, THE EDITOR)--are two such guys. THE VOID is basically one big '80s horror lovefest that storms out of the gate but ultimately falls victim to its own void: no matter how many beloved '80s horror treasures you reference, invoke, or outright steal from, there still needs to be a foundation of something at its core beyond mere shout-outs and callbacks. Partially crowd-funded on Indiegogo by fans who would've otherwise spent the money buying steelbook editions of movies they already own, THE VOID is the cinematic equivalent of perusing your DVD/Blu-ray collection for something to watch. It puts an ensemble cast into a classic John Carpenter scenario, trapped in a hospital with shape-shifting creatures taking over dead bodies while robed, hooded cult figures stand guard outside, preventing them from leaving. Deputy Carter (Aaron Poole, who might convince less attentive viewers that he's Aaron Paul) tries to contain the situation, which is exacerbated by a trigger happy father and son (Daniel Fathers, Mik Byskov) after a local meth head (Even Stern), a pregnant teenager (Grace Munro) and her loving grandfather (James Millington), a trainee nurse who can't even (Ellen Wong, best known as Knives Chau in SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD), a state trooper (Art Hindle) who gets devoured by a Lovecraftian creature as soon as he arrives on the scene, and a head nurse (Kathleen Munroe) who happens to be Carter's estranged wife, their marriage falling apart after the death of their infant child.

Most of these characters may as well be named "Dead Meat," thanks to Dr. Powell (Kenneth Welsh), the doc on duty who happens to be the head of a cult that's set up shop in the basement of the hospital. Powell has made a pact with a force in "The Void," a netherworld whose entry portal exists behind an illuminated triangle in the basement. Powell is able to "transform" people into other beings and defeat death, which became his obsession after the death of his teenage daughter, with his ultimate goal to bring the power of The Void into our world. Gillespie and Kostanski are obviously having a lot of fun here and for a while, you too can have a good time playing Name That Reference. The big selling point of THE VOID is the filmmakers' insistence on using practical creature and gore effects, which look great but are too often left in murky darkness. Seeing old-school splatter of that sort was enough to establish THE VOID's bona fides with many, but with a set-up that combines Carpenter's THE THING and PRINCE OF DARKNESS, the extent of homage crosses the line by the climax, when Gillespie and Kostanski are ripping off no less than three films at the same time--PRINCE OF DARKNESS, Clive Barker's HELLRAISER, and Lucio Fulci's THE BEYOND--plus some gratuitous H.P. Lovecraft for good measure. It's one thing to wear your love of these films on your sleeve, but it's another entirely to just straight-up copy shots and imagery without bringing anything new to the table. What's here is reverent and respectful of iconic '80s horror, but at the same time, it's not that far removed from the same mentality that drives a Friedberg/Seltzer spoof movie--namely, just making the reference is supposed to be good enough. Seeing a transformed Dr. Powell acting like a combination of Frank and Pinhead from HELLRAISER as he blathers endlessly at the Void portal--stopping just short of proclaiming that he "has such sights to show you"--just makes me want to watch HELLRAISER again (if nothing else, THE VOID proves to be a better HELLRAISER sequel than most HELLRAISER sequels). Gillespie's and Kostanski's hearts are in the right place, and it was a joy seeing these kinds of vintage practical effects in a new movie in 2017, further demonstrating that no matter the advancements or the cost-effectiveness, CGI will never be able to top practical in these circumstances. But by the time the credits roll, THE VOID is a film whose title ultimately becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. (Unrated, 90 mins)



MINDGAMERS
(Austria - 2017)

Shot in 2014 as DXM, the sci-fi hodgepodge MINDGAMERS is about as good as you'd expect a movie produced by an energy drink to turn out. Bankrolled by Red Bull's Terra Mater Factual Films media division, MINDGAMERS really wants to be a circa-1999 Wachowski Brothers groundbreaker but ends up feeling like a decade-too-late MATRIX ripoff. Directed and co-written by Andrew Goth (the ill-fated GALLOWWALKERS, a film shelved for several years while star Wesley Snipes was incarcerated), MINDGAMERS opens in 2027 and deals with quantum technology being the next evolution of human connectivity. Renegade priest Kreutz (a visibly befuddled Sam Neill, probably getting a lifetime supply of Red Bull whether he wanted it or not), a deranged quantum physicist who only joined the church so it would fund his pseudo-theological experiments, argues with a monsignor that "the border between physics and faith is dead!" before making his point by bashing the monsignor's head in. Cut to years later at the exclusive DxM Academy ("DxM" an abbreviation for Deus Ex Machina--no, really, it is), where a group of hip and edgy young geniuses led by Jaxon (Tom Payne, now on THE WALKING DEAD) are recruited to perfect the ability to transmit thought and ability via "brain connectivity." Their case study is quadriplegic combat veteran Voltaire (Ryan Doyle) and things start progressing when new team member Stella (Melia Kreiling) taps into DxM super computer "En.o.ch." Once their minds are all linked, the DxM Xtreme Fyzzicystz (OK, that one I made up) start demonstrating as a group the levels of Voltaire's strength and agility prior to his paralysis. There's also an aged Kreutz, slowed down by a stroke, trying to hijack their discoveries for his own purposes, whatever they may be, and then everyone convenes for some kind of interpretive dance flash mob in a torrential downpour.

I'll be honest with you: I haven't the slightest idea what's going on in MINDGAMERS. But I'm not alone, because I don't think the filmmakers do either. Hard sci-fi so flaccid that it might've been better off being financed by Cialis, MINDGAMERS starts out like an extreme gamer remake of PRINCE OF DARKNESS before changing course and finally answering the never-asked question "What would WHAT THE BLEEP DO WE KNOW!? look like if just got fuckin' rekt with more parkour and random Jesus Christ poses, brah?" MINDGAMERS screened at the 2015 Grimmfest in the UK, but then sat on a shelf for almost two years before Universal gave it a one-night, live-streamed theatrical release through Fathom Events in March 2017, where it was hyped that 1000 audience members nationwide could wear connectivity headbands and gather data from their thoughts as the movie unfolded. There wasn't much to report, as many of the screenings were cancelled due to no tickets being sold. There's some impressive-looking Romanian ruins used for exterior shots and the ornate sets show the movie isn't cheap, but it's a mercilessly talky, hopelessly muddled buzzkill that's pretentiously pleased with itself and completely full of shit. (R, 99 mins)



THE BYE BYE MAN
(US - 2017)

STX Entertainment's half-assed attempt at creating a new horror franchise with a would-be horror icon ready-made for convention cosplayers, THE BYE BYE MAN plays like a low-end Dimension Films production that went missing in 2000 and has just now been discovered in a vault. Mixing elements of CANDYMAN, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET and FINAL DESTINATION, THE BYE BYE MAN has a trio of college students--Elliot (Douglas Smith), his girlfriend Sasha (Cressida Bonas), and his perpetual third wheel buddy John (Lucien Laviscount, which could either be the name of an actor or a rakish cad about to face Barry Lyndon in a duel)--moving into a spacious and creepy old house where strange things start happening. A nightstand drawer has a warning "Don't think it don't say it" scrawled "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy"-style, along with "The Bye Bye Man" carved into the wood. After they hold a seance with the requisite psychic friend Kim (Jenna Kanell), they're all haunted by hallucinations and jump-scare visions of the titular hooded, demonic figure (Guillermo del Toro favorite Doug Jones). The Bye Bye Man was awakened by Elliot's discovery of his existence, which was long buried by local newspaper reporter Larry Redmon (SAW's Leigh Whannell), who went berserk back in 1969 and went on a shooting rampage, killing several of his neighbors before guzzling a can of drain cleaner. THE BYE BYE MAN lumbers along, utilizing every cliche in the book as the characters are stalked one by one before the film wheezes to its conclusion which, of course, leaves the door open for a sequel.

Filled with amateurish performances, scenes that play like rehearsal footage, arbitrary Bye Bye Man rules ("When you hear the hound and the coins, you know he's near!"), multiple characters serving no purpose other than being motor-mouthed exposition dumps, and outright stupid plot contrivances--with one getting killed when she's standing in the middle of a darkened road for no reason whatsoever other than the movie needed her to be there at that time--THE BYE BYE MAN was directed by Stacy Title and written by her husband Jonathan Penner, both of whom have made real movies in the past. She directed and he wrote and co-starred in the acclaimed 1995 indie THE LAST SUPPER and 1999's little-seen Hamlet-inspired L.A. mystery LET THE DEVIL WEAR BLACK before their filmmaking careers petered out. They both resurfaced in 2006 with the unlikely SNOOP DOGG'S HOOD OF HORROR, and this is Title's first film since. There isn't much to say about the Cleveland, OH-shot THE BYE BYE MAN, other than it gets even more depressing when Carrie-Anne Moss turns up in a frivolous supporting role as a hard-nosed cop and downright tragic with the arrival of Faye Dunaway (yes, that Faye Dunaway), the Oscar-winning screen legend squandered in a five-minute cameo as Redmon's reclusive widow, on hand to provide more exposition before quickly disappearing from the movie. Heed this warning about THE BYE BYE MAN: don't think it, don't say it, and better yet, don't even see it. (PG-13, 96 mins, also available in a 100-minute unrated version if anyone cares)

In Theaters: CRIMSON PEAK (2015)

CRIMSON PEAK
(US - 2015)

Directed by Guillermo del Toro. Written by Guillermo del Toro and Matthew Robbins. Cast: Mia Wasikowska, Jessica Chastain, Tom Hiddleston, Charlie Hunnam, Jim Beaver, Burn Gorman, Leslie Hope, Doug Jones, Bruce Grey, Jonathan Hyde, Sofia Wells, Emily Coutts. (R, 119 mins)

It seems as if all of Guillermo del Toro's films are long-gestating dream projects he's had toiling in the deepest recesses of his mind since he was a child. He announces more projects that he can possibly make (face it, kids--PACIFIC RIM 2 ain't happening) and there's seemingly no end to his boundless imagination and love for what he does. Del Toro's latest, CRIMSON PEAK, is an absolute triumph of style, set design, costuming, and an almost choking Gothic aura. Among the most ambitious of throwback homages, it plays like a never-made film where Alfred Hitchcock chose Mario Bava to be his cinematographer. It's the realization of what might've happened if Merchant-Ivory remade THE SHINING and moved it to Victorian-era England. Owing as much to Henry James, Daphne du Maurier, Charlotte Bronte, and Edith Wharton as it does to THE HAUNTING THE CHANGELING, and del Toro's own back catalog, CRIMSON PEAK is more of a supernatural Gothic tragedy than a non-stop frightfest, which isn't to imply that it skimps on the shocks and the gore. The jolting scares and the shocking violence are sporadic enough that del Toro makes them count. The found-footage and the digital splatter crowd will probably be bored senseless by CRIMSON PEAK--like the Wachowskis, del Toro is a visionary who still somehow manages to get studios to spend exorbitant amounts of money on his wildly inventive and very personal passion projects. CRIMSON PEAK is probably the best-looking film of the year, and it's a rare case where the surface beauty and visuals are stunning enough to give its writing and structural weaknesses a pass. The script, by del Toro and Matthew Robbins (his writing collaborator on MIMIC and the del Toro-produced DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK), with uncredited contributions from British playwright Lucinda Coxon, hinges on too many predictable plot twists and familiar elements you've seen in a hundred other Gothic dramas and ghost stories. Had the plot been a little more inventive and up to del Toro's standards of production design, he would've had a legitimate classic instead of the year's best-looking retread. The layout, the decor, the architecture--del Toro's attention to even the most minute aesthetic detail is obviously obsessive on a Stanley Kubrick level. As exquisitely and hypnotically jaw-dropping as CRIMSON PEAKS looks, it's obvious where del Toro's priorities lied.

Just after the turn of the 20th century in Buffalo, shy Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska) has aspirations of being the next Mary Shelley. A headstrong, independent young woman forced to grow up early upon the death of her mother, Edith had an early supernatural experience as a child when she was visited by the ghost of her mother (played by del Toro's go-to guy Doug Jones) and warned to "Beware of Crimson Peak!" A bit of a loner with no interest in being a snobbish society matron, Edith lives with her loving, protective industrialist father Carter (Jim Beaver) and keeps ophthalmologist and potential suitor Dr. Alan McMichael (Charlie Hunnam) in the friend zone, but her comfortable upper-class life is upended with the arrival of Sir Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston) and his sister Lady Lucille Sharpe (a delightfully scowling Jessica Chastain) from England. Sir Thomas is hoping to convince Carter to invest in a machine that mines clay from the earth, but Carter is unconvinced of the worth of the machine and dismisses Sir Thomas and his "soft hands" as indicative of a life of too much privilege. After Sir Thomas begins courting Edith in an attempt to prove his worth, Carter has a private investigator (Burn Gorman) look into the Sharpe's background and is so perturbed by what he finds that he pays Sir Thomas to break Edith's heart and leave Buffalo at once. When Carter is brutally murdered, Edith finds solace and comfort in the loving arms of Sir Thomas and the two are quickly married, much to Alan's suspicion and Lady Lucille's apparent seething jealousy.

When the newlyweds and Lady Lucille relocate to the Sharpe ancestral home at Allerdale Hall, a decrepit mansion so far out in rural England that it's four hours to the nearest town, the truth becomes clear: the Sharpes are penniless, and Allerdale Hall is in almost complete ruins, with a hole in the roof that allows leaves , rain, and snow to pour down directly into the main living room. It also rests on a large deposit of natural clay into which it's been very slowly sinking for decades. While it's clear the Sharpes are running a con game of sorts in an attempt to get Edith's money, it's also obvious that Allerdale Hall is haunted by the vengeful ghosts of those who have died within its walls. Edith encounters these ghosts but can't convince Sir Thomas or Lady Lucille that they're real, and Edith grows even more alarmed when she learns that, because of the red clay surrounding Allerdale Hall, the home is referred to by some as "Crimson Peak," the very place the ghostly spectre of her mother warned her about years earlier.

While reminiscent of Rebecca and The Turn of the Screw, CRIMSON PEAK has a long stretch of being a Victorian take on THE SHINING. From her childhood, Edith has had a "shining" of sorts that she blocked and let manifest in her writing of ghost stories. The Kubrickian design and layout of Allerdale Hall, with its endless corridors, a bathtub scene that's a blatant riff on Jack's encounter in room 237, a ball that enters the frame and rolls to Edith but there's no one there who could've rolled it to her, and warnings from Lady Lucille to stay out of certain areas, all owe a debt to at least Kubrick's (perhaps not Stephen King's) vision of the Overlook Hotel. There's even a Dick Hallorann surrogate in Alan, who journeys overseas from Buffalo to England and travels a great distance in a blinding blizzard to the snowed-in Allerdale Hall in an attempt to rescue Edith once he realizes the Sharpes' true intent. All of this looks incredible, but in terms of story and theme, del Toro's a bit on autopilot. His efforts were unquestionably concentrated in the visual aspects of the film, and to that respect, it works beautifully. If you want an impossibly gorgeous piece of Gothic eye candy, you can't beat CRIMSON PEAK, which demands to be seen on as big of a screen as possible. Del Toro has said, in envisioning Edith as his heroine, that CRIMSON PEAK is for his "inner 14-year-old bookish girl." That's a telling statement, because in terms of content, CRIMSON PEAK isn't really for 14-year-old bookish girls, but its character arcs and story progression could've very well been concocted by a 14-year-old del Toro. There's a lot to love here, especially if you're a fan of Gothic chillers, haunted mansions, and the garish lighting of Roger Corman's AIP Poe adaptations and when Mario Bava started making movies in color with 1964's BLACK SABBATH. But del Toro the screenwriter just isn't working at the same level as del Toro the director.

On DVD/Blu-ray: REPENTANCE (2014) and RAZE (2014)

REPENTANCE
(US - 2014)

When Forest Whitaker won his Oscar for 2006's THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND, it was just as much for his powerful performance as Idi Amin as it was an acknowledgment of his over 20 years of consistently exemplary work in lead and character roles. Whitaker was as reliable as they came, and his presence almost always meant a good film would be better or, worst-case scenario, a bad film would be bearable at least while he was onscreen.  Since the Oscar, he's been on a skid that easily rivals Cuba Gooding, Jr., Nicolas Cage, and Adrien Brody, but Whitaker's astonishing mutation into one of our current worst actors is somehow more alarming than the others, mainly because when you see him giving these terrible performances in terrible movies like THE EXPERIMENT, CATCH .44, and FREELANCERS, you can see he's giving it everything he's got, and then some.  Perhaps he knows the material is shit and he's overcompensating in his attempts to turn it into something. Twitching, gesticulating, and yelling are now his constant crutches. But even being in the presence of the likes of Christian Bale, Woody Harrelson, and Sam Shepard in OUT OF THE FURNACE didn't help matters: Whitaker's performance as an inexplicably grunting police chief was so bad that he stopped the movie cold every time he opened his mouth. Whitaker's past accomplishments will always be his and, by all accounts, he is a very nice and genuine guy, but seriously, what the hell is going on here? Why can't he act anymore? Watching Forest Whitaker in most of his recent films is almost always a painful, depressing sight.

He scrapes bottom with REPENTANCE, and since he also produced it, he has no one to blame but himself, though there's plenty of that to share with director Philippe Caland and screenwriter Shintaro Shimosawa, a former producer and writer on Whitaker's justifiably short-lived CBS series CRIMINAL MINDS: SUSPECT BEHAVIOR. Shimosawa has also logged time on Fox's hilariously awful THE FOLLOWING, which should be another huge red flag about what awaits the viewer in REPENTANCE (the film is a remake of a still-unreleased Caland film titled THE GURU & THE GYPSY, completed in 2012 and featuring Caland in the role played by Whitaker here). If you've ever wished for more socially-conscious torture porn with an uplifting, spiritual ending, then REPENTANCE is where it's at. In what's now a typically mannered, hyperventilating performance, Whitaker stars as Angel, a grieving and clearly troubled man unable to cope with the death of his mother. He still feels her and sees her following him around. He seeks the guidance of self-help author and life coach Tommy Carter (Anthony Mackie), who uses meditation and yoga to help Angel address the psychological blocks in his grieving process. But Tommy has his own secrets: he survived a near-death experience four years earlier, and the circumstances around it have led his older brother Ben (Mike Epps) to resent him, his success, and his marriage to Maggie (Sanaa Lathan).  When Tommy tries to break off the sessions with Angel, Angel knocks him out cold and goes full MISERY on his favorite writer, holding him captive in a bomb shelter under the house and inflicting all manner of torture and pain on him, starting with a spike through the leg. Obviously, there's a connection between Tommy and the death of Angel's mother that might have something to with the opening scene of Tommy and Ben driving drunk four years earlier and running over someone.  And there is the primary problem with REPENTANCE: Caland and Shimosawa never met a twist they couldn't telegraph ludicrously far in advance to the point where it's basically a self-spoiler. Obviously the person they hit is Angel's mother. Obviously, Angel knows this and has targeted Tommy. REPENTANCE also requires its characters to behave like idiots: after Tommy goes missing for several days and Maggie is informed by his manager (Peter Weller) that he's been a no-show at his book signings, Maggie never calls the police.  Instead, she just keeps texting him and leaving messages.  After Tommy's been missing a little while longer, Ben gets a text from him (actually sent by Angel) to meet him at a strange address. Is Ben suspicious of this strange address? Does he call the cops or even Maggie? Nope. He goes to the address, and it's Angel's mostly boarded-up house. Again, does Ben call the cops? Is he alarmed? Nope. He stands around until he gets conked over the head by Angel and dragged in the basement with his brother because Shimosawa is a shitty writer. The crammed-in feel-good ending is insultingly stupid, but considering what came before, what else do you expect?  I might suggest a life coach for Forest Whitaker if he continues squandering his talent in shit-shows like REPENTANCE. At least we'll always have GHOST DOG.  (R, 94 mins)


RAZE
(US/France - 2014)

New Zealand-born stuntwoman Zoe Bell is best known for doubling Uma Thurman in KILL BILL and playing herself in Quentin Tarantino's DEATH PROOF portion of GRINDHOUSE. Since then, she's turned up in small roles in mostly DTV actioners and is part of The Asylum's upcoming all-female EXPENDABLES knockoff MERCENARIES, with the likes of Vivica A. Fox, Cynthia Rothrock, Brigitte Nielson, and Kristanna Loken. Bell's latest film RAZE gives her the lead as well as a producing credit, and reunites her with DEATH PROOF co-stars Tracie Thoms and, in a brief cameo, Rosario Dawson, whose presence here proves that she's indeed a Bell friend, but not a good enough friend that she'd stick around any longer than absolutely necessary. RAZE is a numbingly violent, offensively idiotic waste of time from director Josh C. Waller, giving us back-to-back bed-shitters with this right on this heels of his awful MCCANICK. Bell is Sabrina, who wakes up in some kind of underground bunker with garishly red Dario Argento hallways. She's an unwilling participant in a twisted tournament hosted by cartoonishly psychotic high-society couple Joseph (Doug Jones) and Elizabeth (Sherilyn Fenn sighting!), who have narrowed it down to the final six in a fight to the death.  If you lose or refuse to fight, your dearest loved one will also be killed. They've got Sabrina's daughter and she's determined to emerge victorious.

What is the point of RAZE?  Imagine FIGHT CLUB with just the fights, and David Fincher botching the job. It's basically just one shaky-cam, quick-cut fight sequence after another, all ending with the loser getting their face beaten to hamburger. Joseph and Elizabeth appear to be the Tyler Durden organizers for the EYES WIDE SHUT one-percenter set, but to what end?  We get the what, but what about the why?  A lot of people seem to be in the know about the tournament. But who? Cops? Politicians? Other movers & shakers? Why is it taking place?  RAZE is indicative of the kind of "born on third base and thinks it hit a triple" mentality of today's cult cinema, the notion that all you need to do is show up and make the reference and you're "cult." RAZE can't even be bothered to make the reference. Many reviews have likened it to an old-school, 1970s women-in-prison movie. Anyone who thinks this has obviously never seen an old-school, 1970s women-in-prison movie. It's hard to care about anything when we learn almost nothing about the characters and there's no context in which the story exists. The women are abducted and taken to this place and they fight to the death. There's no suspense, no satire, no commentary on class struggle or social issues, no underlying themes, no message of empowerment for women, and ultimately, no answers and no payoff at the end. Where's the entertainment here? It's just women pummeling each other into ground chuck.  There's nothing here. Waller is so bad at his job that both Sabrina's fight with psychotic captive Phoebe (Rebecca Marshall) and her revenge on her captors are anti-climactic letdowns. RAZE is one of the most shallow, miserable film experiences I've had in quite some time. It's not overtly misogynistic because the movie would be equally worthless if it had just men in the tournament, but it sure does feel like girl-on-girl wife-batterer porn disguised as a BLOODSPORT knockoff. Is it supposed to be edgy or subversive because it involves women? If so, then Waller and screenwriter Robert Beaucage are even dumber than RAZE already makes them look. The worst film of 2014 so far. (R, 92 mins)